You Don't Want Them Sold To The Sex Trade But Making Your Running Shoes Is Okay With You As Long As You Get A Good Deal - Right?

The Bottom Line Is Killing Humanity!

Overview: Innocenti Digest on Child Domestic Work

The latest publication of the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (formally known as the International Child Development Centre) documents the situation of what is probably the largest group of child workers in the world: child domestic workers. Orphaned children or children of impoverished families have throughout history been sent to live in another household (usually, but not necessarily, related), where they perform tasks in return for shelter, care, nurture and education or useful instruction. In some settings, these children are seen as ‘adopted’ family members. The important change in recent times is that this kind of arrangement is becoming commercialized, and therefore more potentially exploitative.

Increasingly, the sending out or the taking in of a child is not primarily designed to serve the child's interests, but is the outcome of a transaction in which the traded commodity is the child's labour. Children are being sent to work far from their families and, in some cases, even trafficked across borders. Underlying these trends are breakdowns in traditional family systems caused by changing social structures, upheaval or war.

This report is being released at a time when a new International Labour Organization (ILO) standard is expected on the 'worst forms of child labour. It explains that although it is difficult to position child domestic employment within any hierarchy of hazardous and exploitative child work, the ILO has established a checklist against which to measure the practice on a case-by-case basis. It becomes, according to ILO, among the worst forms of child labour when the child has been sold, is bonded or works without pay; works excessive hours, in isolation or at night; is exposed to grave safety or health hazards; is abused in the household or is at risk of physical violence or sexual harassment; and works at a very young age.

There is little information about this ‘invisible workforce’, invisible because each child is separately employed and works in the seclusion of a private house. Motivation to inquire into their situation is also likely to be limited in societies where the employment of child domestics is seen as being normal and they are considered to be a ‘cared-for’ rather than an exploited group. Evidence from country studies suggests the following about child domestic workers:

• About 90% are girls; their powerlessness within the household renders them especially vulnerable to sexual abuse;
• The majority is between 12 and 17 years, however the age children enter into domestic service can be as young as five.
• Few attend school, which severely limits their life chances and makes them pessimistic about their future.
• They have little freedom or free time, sometimes working 15 hours or more per day, seven days a week; they live in, and are under the exclusive, round-the-clock control of the employer.

• Domestic work is among the lowest status, least regulated, and poorest remunerated of all occupations, whether performed by adults or children;

• Many do not handle their earnings, some are unpaid and for others pay is given to parents or unrelated intermediaries;
• The live-in child domestic is cut off from her or his own family, has little opportunity to make friends, and has almost no social exchange with peers.
• Their daily endurance of discrimination and isolation in the employer’s household has been reported as the most difficult part of their burden.

Last Updated 29/04/2000 16:53:51 -0230