Statistics, Development and Human Rights Session i-pl 0
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- Statistical information and monitoring programme on child labour (SIMPOC)
- References: Ashagrie, K. 1993. Statistics on child labour: A brief report , in Bulletin of Labour Statistics
- General Report (Report IV)
- Improving Action-oriented Research on the Worst Forms of Child Labour: Proceedings of Asian Regional Workshop and Resource Materials
- Children at Work
- Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No.138 ) and Minimum Age Recommendation, 1973 (No. 146)
- Child labour surveys: Results of methodological experiments in four countries 1992-93
- World population prospects
- AFRICA ASIA LATIN AMERICA
- EUROPE 8 Central Asia MIDDLE EAST
- REGION BOTH SEXES BOYS GIRLS
- Regions
- Latin America and Caribbean
- REGION BOTH SEXES % BOYS
- Regions Africa
- Proportion of children 5 14 years of age Indicators Both sexes Boys Girls % % % Economically active children 25 27 22 Boy/Girl ratio at work 100 56 44
- Agriculture 12 12 16 Children: whose work is stressful up to 50% of working children who came home from work exhausted up to 60% of working children
- Source: Ashagrie, K. 1997. Statistics on Working Children and Hazardous Child Labour in Brief , ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, p15.
iv) Survey of schools A sample survey of schools was not included in the ILO experiments. However, such a survey is deemed essential for finding out in some detail why many school-going children may be working while many of their colleagues at school are not. The investigation must be conducted with detailed questionnaires addressed not only to the individual students themselves, but also to their teachers and to the school authorities/administrators. There is an advantage in carrying out a school survey immediately following a household-based survey since the findings of this latter survey could be used for constructing a frame that would enable to draw samples of schools and the children. This would also permit to make meaningful comparisons and analyses of the results from the two surveys. The only school survey so far undertaken was in Portugal in which the ILO collaborated closely. In addition, a child labour project agreement has been signed recently with the Italian Government for a similar collaboration on household-based and school surveys. A few other countries, particularly Georgia, Ukraine, have expressed interest in including surveys of schools in their overall chid labour survey programmes to be undertaken in the near future. The Portuguese 2 sample survey of schools was carried out in 1999 as a second phase following the completion of the household-based sample survey of school-age children 6-15 years old which was undertaken at the national level in1998 as the first phase. For the school survey, three questionnaires were used B the first was concerned with the school children themselves, the second was addressed to their teachers, and the third to the authority/official of the school responsible for the school administration etc. For completing the first questionnaire, teachers who knew the children were used to interview each child. The objective was for clarifying whether there was any knowledge of the child’s involvement in an economic activity and how that activity might have affected the various aspects of the child’s behaviour at school. The questionnaire sought information on the child’s relationship with the school, the physical conditions in the schoold, his/her favourite subjects and performance at school, extra-curricular activities in the school, details of the journey or distance between home and school, nutrition, the child’s relationship with his/her teachers and schoolfellows, participation by the person responsible for the child’s education, the out-of-school environment (out-of-school activities, leisure, etc.), details of economic activity (for those who worked), responsibility for the child’s education and, finally, the child’s future prospects. The second questionnaire that was completed by the teachers reported on the children in terms of the latters’ conscientiousness, participation in lessons, scholastic performance, relationship with teachers and schoolfellows and had also the opportunity to refer to the conditions in the school. They were also required to report on general aspects of child labour in the school and in the region. The one which was completed by the school authority was concerned with the conditions in the school (physical and human), and a description of general aspects of child labour and the region (e.g. known cases of children working and attending school, noting differences of behaviour compared with other pupils), etc. v) Survey of worst forms of child labour As briefly stated earlier, children carry out a very wide range of activities and occupations, many of which limit or completely impede school attendance. Many of their activities are exploitative and/or hazardous which affect, in varying degrees, the children’s health (mental or physical), spiritual, moral or social development Many of the above mentioned deficiencies or weaknesses of standard large-scale sample surveys in capturing information about such activities and situations may be overcome through the application of what is commonly known as the Arapid assessment (RA) 3 approach. . This approach is a micro-level inquiry method used particularly for studying activities and occupations considered as illegal or immoral on which neither parents nor their children will provide any or very little information. This method is intended to provide relevant information relatively quickly and cheaply which will serve as basis for further in-depth research. It is well suited for obtaining detailed knowledge of the working and life circumstances of children by means of discussions and interviews Its scope is therefore limited and local, and it focuses on areas which are known to have substantial concentrations of children involved in activities difficult to identify and quantify. Its output is primarily qualitative and descriptive.. The following are considered important elements in this approach, but they do not represent an exhaustive list: – derive an initial estimate of the incidence of child labour in an area, and a preliminary understanding of the kinds of work children do there – identify and describe the actual working conditions of children in the area or in a particular occupation within it, including work processes and their physical effects, hours, rates of pay, relation to the employer, living conditions, etc. (This can include children working as family workers as well) – learn about some characteristics of the working children, their families and communities, their migration and work histories, and the influences that resulted in their working – learn about the relation between school and work, the attitudes toward education of children and parents, the forces, pressures and attitudes that push children in one direction or the other, and the condition of the schools in an area – assess the extent of hazardous, unhealthy or morally unsound or illicit conditions in child work in the area, the numbers of children involved in them, the pathways that led to those occupations, the chances for improvement or removal of the children from those conditions, the desire for rehabilitation, etc. – determine the possible existence of "hidden" or "hard-to-access" working populations of children in the area, and/or the possible prevalence of "bonded" child labour – determine suitable bases for initiating programmes and interventions by governments, NGOs, etc., including an appraisal of existing resources and agencies that can help address problems. The RA manual referred to above is aimed at providing suggestions and guidelines upon which researchers may be able to build and use in a specific hidden form of child labour which is difficult to capture through direct interviewing of the individuals who are actually engaged in the activity vi) Concluding remarks The newly developed household-based sample survey approach, supplemented by surveys of employers/establishments, schools and street children as well as RA investigations of illegal and immoral activities, has proven to be the best approach to measuring statistically the child labour phenomenon in all its different forms. Therefore , all the surveys so far implemented by countries at the national level have been household based. These surveys and those planned for the next couple of years are supported technically and financially under the auspices of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) which the ILO established in 1992 with the financial backing of the German Government. Given the effectiveness of the ILO’s methodological approaches for quantifying child labour, a sub-project of IPEC designated as Statistical information and monitoring programme on child labour (SIMPOC) was formulated and launched in 1998 with the financial contributions from several donor countries.4 SIMPOC’s main objective is to assist individual countries worldwide in the regular production and use of comprehensive and reliable quantitative and qualitative data for formulating and implementing policies and action programmes aimed at combating child labour in all its facets, as well as for the protection and promotion of the Arights of the child. The results will be updated and stored in the ILO/IPEC global child labour database that is being made accessible to users worldwide, and they will be used for evaluating the effectiveness of the policies and actions already implemented: thereby serving as instruments for monitoring the progress made in the elimination of the child labour practice at the national, regional and global levels. Anonymized micro-data files from the IPEC/SIMPOC sponsored national surveys will also be made available in a special data archive for further analysis by researchers. The ILO’s effort in combating child labour is reinforced this year with the launching of an ILO/UNICEF/World Bank joint project: Developing New Strategies for Understanding Children’s Work and its Impact 5. References: Ashagrie, K. 1993. Statistics on child labour: A brief report, in Bulletin of Labour Statistics, 1993-3, (ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva). CB. 1994. Inter-regional Seminar on Methodological Surveys of Child Labour (report), Bangkok, 1-5 August 1994, (ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva). CB. 1996. Statistics on child labour (report), (ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva). BC. 1997. Methodological child labour surveys and statistics: ILO’s recent work in brief, (ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva). BC. 1998 (1997 revision). Statistics on working children and hazardous child labour in brief, (ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva). BC. 1998. Child labour statistics: Methodological considerations, in General Report (Report IV), 16th International Conference of Labour Statisticians, (ILO Geneva). BC. 2000. Improving the knowledge base on child labour in Action against child labour, ed. Nelien Haspels & Michele Jankanish, (ILO Geneva), pp115-144.. BC. 2000. Large-scale Surveys on Child Labour in Improving Action-oriented Research on the Worst Forms of Child Labour: Proceedings of Asian Regional Workshop and Resource Materials, Regional Working Group on Child Labour (RWG-CL), Bangkok, April 2000, pp18-25. CB and Haspels, N. 1995. Comprehensive and reliable data, in Children at Work, , No. 1, (ILO, Geneva). EUROSTAT/IMF/OECD/United Nations/World Bank. 1993. System of National Accounts 1993, (Revision), (prepared under the auspices of the Inter-Secretariat Working Group on National Accounts), (Brussels/Luxembourg, New York, Paris, Washington, DC). ILO. 1973. Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No.138) and Minimum Age Recommendation, 1973 (No. 146), (ILO, Geneva). BC. 1999. Worst Forms Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No.182) and Worst Forms Child Labour Recommendation, 1999 (No.190), (ILO, Geneva). BC. and Gujarat Institute of Development Research. 1993. Child labour in India: Results of a methodological survey in Surendranagar and Surat Districts of Gujarat State, by Pravin Visaria and Paul Jacob (Ahmedabad). BC and Direction de la prévision et de la statistique. 1993. Le travail des enfants au Sénégal: Enquête méthodologique, by Abdoulaye Sadio (Dakar). BC and Ghana Statistical Service. 1994. Child labour in Ghana: A methodological sample survey - A survey of child labour in Accra Metropolitan, Sene and Sissala Districts, (Accra). BC and Central Bureau of Statistics. 1994. Working children in Bandung, Indonesia, by Abuzar Asra (ed.) (Jakarta). BC and State Institute of Statistics. 1995. Child labour in Turkey, by Tuncer Bulutay (Ankara). BC/IPEC. 1995. Child labour, (report prepared for the 264th Session of the Governing Body (GB.264/ESP/1)), (ILO Geneva). BC. 1996. Child labour surveys: Results of methodological experiments in four countries 1992-93 (ILO Geneva). CB. 1996. Children at work: How many and where?, in World of Work, No. 15, (ILO Geneva). BC. 1996. Child labour: What is to be done?, (document discussed at the Informal Tripartite Meeting at the Ministerial Level during the International Labour Conference (ITM/1/1996)), (ILO Geneva). BC. 1997. Economically active population 1950-2010, 4th ed., (estimates and projections by Bureau of Statistics), (Working papers, in 6 vols.), (ILO Geneva). United Nations. 1989. The Rights of the Child Convention, (United Nations, New York). BC. 1996. World population prospects, (1996 Revision), (New York). BC. 2000. Investigating child labour - Guidelines for a rapid assessment: A field manual, a draft produced recently with the help of an external consultant to be finalized and published as a joint ILO/UNICEF manual following field testing which is currently ongoing. Table 1. Scheduled Timing of National Child Labour Surveys until 2002
Table 2 Distribution of economically active children 5-14 years of age in developing countries: by region and sex (1995)
Source: Ashagrie, K. 1997. Statistics on Working Children and Hazardous Child Labour in Brief, ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, p.4 Table 3 Economic activity participation rate of children 5-14 years of age in developing countries: by region and sex (1995)
Source: Ashagrie, K. 1997. Statistics on Working Children and Hazardous Child Labour in Brief, ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, p.5 Table 4 Some indicators of the extent of child labour in countries where national surveys were conducted recently Proportion of children 5 14 years of age Indicators Both sexes Boys Girls % % % Economically active children 25 27 22 Boy/Girl ratio at work 100 56 44 Children attending school 39 87 49 90 23 84 of whom with economic activity 00 33 00 25 00 42 Not attending school 13 61 10 51 16 77 of whom: in economic activity only 39 56 56 74 23 38 in housekeeping activity only 12 32 8 14 15 49 working 40 hours or more per week 37 38 41 42 24 32 working 49 hours or more per week 12 17 11 19 12 17 working 56 hours or more per week 9 13 9 15 8 13 completely idle (not going to school, nor with economic or housekeeping activity 27 37 27 37 23 37 Children whose work is hazardous 33 68 33 67 27 69 Sectors where actual incidence of injuries/illnesses is higher than 10%: Construction 26 26 35 Mining/quarrying 16 12 21 Transport/storage/communication 18 19 n/a Agriculture 12 12 16 Children: whose work is stressful up to 50% of working children who came home from work exhausted up to 60% of working children who have no day off/no free time up to 80% of working children _________________________________________________________________________________ Source: Ashagrie, K. 1997. Statistics on Working Children and Hazardous Child Labour in Brief, ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, p15. 1 Since its inception in 1919, the ILO has been preoccupied with the conditions of working children in general and, in particular, with child labour in all its facets. To this end, it has been endeavouring to study the plight of working children and assist in the formulation and adoption of various international instruments not only for the immediate eradication of the most harmful work and the protection of vulnerable children such as th very young and especially girls, as a priority, but for the progressive elimination of all forms of the practice globally. So far, nearly two dozens of Conventions and several Recommendations have been endorsed by the ILO member States - the first one in 1919 (Minimum Age (Industry) Convention No 5) and the latest in 1999 (Convention No.182 mentioned above). 2 Much of the description relating to the school survey in Portugal is based on the documents used for that survey, including the survey instruments. 3 Most descriptions, etc. concerning the RA approach in this part of the present paper are based on, or are summaries or direct extracts of selected sections from, Investigating child labour - Guidelines for a rapid assessment: A field manual, a draft produced recently by an external consultant to be finalized and published as a joint ILO/UNICEF manual following field testing which is currently ongoing. 4 Presently the donors include: Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and USA. 5 This joint project was set up in 2000 by the ILO, UNICEF and World Bank for collaborating closely “with a view to (i) improve child labour research, data collection and analysis; (ii) enhance capacity in child labour data collection and research, especially at local and national levels; and (iii) improve impact assessments of interventions against child labour” (quoted from the Joint Project Document). The project, whose International Coordinator is based at the UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, was designed initially for a two-year period with a budget of $2 million from donors. The Government of Finland has already committed funds and others have indicated that they will do so shortly. 6 Gujarat State, survey 1993 7 West Java, survey 1993, North Sumatra 1995 8Portugal (1999-2000) and Italy (2000-2002), household-based and school surveys in both countries, financed by own government and in close collaboration with ILO/IPEC on technical matters. Spain has also indicated interest in similar undertaking.
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