神马作文网child labor
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child labor
如果有人会的话,请告诉小妹我,感激不尽啊!最好在25号之前告诉我!Thank you!
如果有人会的话,请告诉小妹我,感激不尽啊!最好在25号之前告诉我!Thank you!
Child labour
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
A young boy recycling garbage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2006
Child labour, or child labor, refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries. Child labour was utilized to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the beginning of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during industrialization, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights.
Child labour is common in some parts of the world, and can be factory work, mining,[1] prostitution, quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour occurs in the informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses—far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay. As long as there is family poverty there will be child labor. [2]
According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 158 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labour worldwide, excluding child domestic labour.[3]
Banana
Main article: Children's rights
The United Nations and the International Labor Organization consider child labour exploitative,[4][5] with the UN stipulating, in article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that:
...States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. Although globally there is an estimated 250 milllion children working.[5]
The first general laws against child labour, the Factory Acts, were passed in Britain in the first half of the 19th century. Children younger than nine were not allowed to work and the work day of youth under the age of 18 was limited to twelve hours.[6]
In many developed countries,[7] it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works, excluding household chores or schoolwork. An employer is often not allowed to hire a child below a certain age. This minimum age depends on the country; child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without parents' consent and restrictions at age 16.
During the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.[8] Based on this understanding of the use of children as labourers, it is now considered by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer countries may allow or tolerate it.
In the 1990s every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. However according to the United Nations Foundation Somalia signed the convention in 2002, the delay of the signing was believed to been due to Somalia not having a government to sign the convention [9]. The CRC provides the strongest,[citation needed] most consistent[citation needed] international legal language prohibiting illegal child labour; however it does not make child labour illegal.
A boy repairing a tire in Gambia
Poor families often rely on the labours of their children for survival, and sometimes it is their only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not always in the industrial sector. Child labour is employed in subsistence agriculture and in the urban informal sector; child domestic work is also important. In order to benefit children, child labour prohibition has to address the dual challenge of providing them with both short-term income and long-term prospects. Some youth rights groups, however, feel that prohibiting work below a certain age violates human rights, reducing children's options and leaving them subject to the whims of those with money.[citation needed]
In 1999 the Global March Against Child Labour the movement began with a worldwide march when thousands of people marched together to jointly put forth the message against child labour. The march, which started on January 17, 1998, touched every corner of the globe, built immense awareness and led to high level of participation from the masses. This march finally culminated at the ILO Conference in Geneva. The voice of the marchers was heard and reflected in the draft of the ILO Convention against the worst forms of child labour. The following year, the Convention was unanimously adopted at the ILO Conference in Geneva. Today, with 169 countries having ratified the convention so far, it has become the fastest ratified convention in the history of ILO. A large role in this was played by the Global March through our member partners.
In an influential paper on "The Economics of Child Labor" in the American Economic Review (1998), Kaushik Basu and Pham Hoang Van argue that the primary cause of child labour is parental poverty. That being so, they caution against the use of a legislative ban against child labour, and argue that should be used only when there is reason to believe that a ban on child labour will cause adult wages to rise and so compensate adequately the households of the poor children. Child labour is still widely used today in many countries, including India and Bangladesh. CACL estimated that there are between 70 and 80 million child labourers in India.[10] Even though the respective national laws state that no child under the age of 14 may work, the law is often ignored. Children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target. They get paid as little as 1 cent per item produced.
Companies use children because they're cheaper to hire than adults. Companies that produce massive amounts of products like shoes and clothes often use these illegal techniques to have more profit.
Child labour happens for 61% in Asia, 32% in Africa, and 7% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations In Asia, 22% of the workforce is children. In Latin America, 17% of the workforce is children. The proportion of child laborers varies a lot among countries and even regions inside those countries.
To stop child labour the police often checks on factories that are suspected to use children.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Child labour in Victorian Britain
* 2 Defense of child labour
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links
[edit] Child labour in Victorian Britain
Main article: Victorian era
The Victorian era became notorious for employing young children in factories and mines and as chimney sweeps.[11] Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship, Charles Dickens for example worked at the age of 12 in the Blacking Factory, with his family in debtor's prison. The children of the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs and low wages.[12]
Agile boys were employed by the chimney sweeps; small children were employed to scramble under machinery to retrieve cotton bobbins; and children were also employed to work in coal mines to crawl through tunnels too narrow and low for adults. Children also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers and other cheap goods.[12] Some children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid 18th Century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80 hour weeks. A high number of children also worked as prostitutes.[13] Children as young as three were put to work. In coal mines children began work at the age of five and generally died before the age of 25. Many children (and adults) worked 16 hour days. As early as 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts were passed to regulate the working hours of workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a royal commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11-18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9-11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine were no longer permitted to work. This act however only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10 hour working days. [13]
This order by the Honourable Chief Justice comes when the government is taking an extremely retrogressive stance on the issue of child labour in sweatshops in India and threatening 'retaliatory measures' against child rights organisations. [3]
In a parallel development, Global March Against Child Labour and BBA are in dialogue with the GAP Inc. and other stakeholders to work out a positive strategy to prevent the entry of child labour in to sweatshops and device a mechanism of monitoring and remedial action. GAP Inc. Senior Vice President, Dan Henkle in a statement said: "We have been making steady progress, and the children are now under the care of the local government. As our policy requires, the vendor with which our order was originally placed will be required to provide the children with access to schooling and job training, pay them an ongoing wage and guarantee them jobs as soon as they reach the legal working age. We will now work with the local government and with Global March to ensure that our vendor fulfils these obligations." [4] [5]
Austrian school economist Murray Rothbard also defended child labor, stating that British and American children of the pre- and post-Industrial Revolution lived and suffered in infinitely worse conditions where jobs were not available for them and went "voluntarily and gladly" to work in factories.[18]
However, the British historian and socialist E.P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class draws a qualitative distinction between child domestic work and participation in the wider (waged) labor market.[8] Further, the usefulness of the experience of the industrial revolution in making predictions about current trends has been disputed. Economic historian Hugh Cunningham, author of Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500, notes that:
"Fifty years ago it might have been assumed that, just as child labor had declined in the developed world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it would also, in a trickle-down fashion, in the rest of the world. Its failure to do that, and its re-emergence in the developed world, raise questions about its role in any economy, whether national or global."[17]
Child laborers on a farm in Maine, October 1940
Big Bill Haywood, a leading labor organizer and leader of the Western Federation of Miners and a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World famously claimed "the worst thief is he who steals the playtime of children!" [19]
According to Thomas DeGregori, an economics professor at the University of Houston, in an article published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank operating in Washington D.C., "it is clear that technological and economic change are vital ingredients in getting children out of the workplace and into schools. Then they can grow to become productive adults and live longer, healthier lives. However, in poor countries like Bangladesh, working children are essential for survival in many families, as they were in our own heritage until the late 19th century. So, while the struggle to end child labour is necessary, getting there often requires taking different routes -- and, sadly, there are many political obstacles.
童工
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童工 是指雇用／利用儿童从事经济生产活动,包括当童星、报童、少年兵、工厂工人等. 此类童工是指小于合法年龄的人,例如18岁或者20岁,包括青少年及儿童.在很长一段时间,童工并不被认为是一个问题,当义务教育和劳工与儿童权利深入人心以后,这才成为一个广为争论的话题.
童工的工资一般比较成年人为低,不过,著名的童星是例外,比如哈利波特男主角. 因此雇用童工被很多国际组织认为是剥削行径,比如联合国,国际劳工组织.
童工的最常见形式是少年兵和雏妓,其次是合法的儿童演员和歌手,还有就是在学校假期时进行的农业、工业劳作.一些协助家人工作,如到家人开设的商店帮忙的儿童也算是童工的一类.
童工在不少战乱国家地区是常见的,因为成年人非自然死亡,人均寿命短,成年人生产力少,“穷苦家庭早当家”,家中没有生产力,只有儿童或老人. 在没有社会福利安全网的地区（第三世界）,被发达国家强权禁止童工,又是另一种无奈.
童工之害：儿童没有受教育的机会,他们在成长期失去学习广泛文化知识的机会,令当地区无望转营成为知识型经济社会.
目录
[隐藏]
* 1 分类
* 2 工种分类
o 2.1 轻量工作（light work）
o 2.2 危险工作（hazardous work）
o 2.3 最恶劣形式的工作（the worst form of work）
* 3 为什么有童工?
o 3.1 政府并未严格执行有关公约
o 3.2 家庭贫穷
o 3.3 社会制度
o 3.4 童工的工作待遇较差
o 3.5 工作性质
* 4 对禁止童工政策的不同意见
* 5 相关
* 6 外部参考
[编辑] 分类
根据国际劳工组织（International Labour Organization）公约138及182条,童工可分为三类：
* 11岁或以下、从事任何经济活动的儿童；
* 12至14岁、从事适量“轻量工作”（light work）以外的经济活动的儿童；
* 18岁以下、从事任何“危险工作”（hazardous work）的儿童.
[编辑] 工种分类
根据国际劳工标准,尽管儿童可以工作,可是工种的危险程度以及对儿童身心的影响程度是相当关键的.工作普遍分为三类,包括“轻量工作”（light work）、“危险工作”（hazardous work）和“最恶劣形式的工作”（the worst form of work）：
[编辑] 轻量工作（light work）
这是指该工作不会损害工作者的健康和发展,并且不阻碍他们上学和接受职业培训的机会. 一般国家都会容许13至15岁的儿童从事“轻量工作”,但有关工作时数和种类则因地而异.而这些工作可包括家务清洁、轻巧的农耕种植工作、店务员、售票员、送报员、包装、运送等.
[编辑] 危险工作（hazardous work）
不论是工作性质本身或是工作地点,只要会危及工作者的健康、安全、心理或不道德的,这类工作便属于“危险工作”. 国际劳工组织建议各国必需立法规管“危险工作”,并只能让18岁或以上的人士从事这些工作.一般来说,这些工作包括采矿、编织毛毯、制造砖块和玻璃、建造业、制造业、贩卖酒精、水底工作（underwater work）、控制机械、街头贩卖及娱乐事业（如在夜总会、酒吧、赌场、马戏团等工作）等.
[编辑] 最恶劣形式的工作（the worst form of work）
这些工作包括将人当作奴隶、贩卖、用作抵债；强迫参与战争；卖淫、从事色情事业；制造或贩卖毒品,以及所有危及工作者的健康、安全、心理或不道德的工作. 而所有18岁以下的青少年是严禁参与或从事这类工作.（当然,就算是成年人也不能从事卖淫、制造或贩卖毒品以及所有危及工作者的健康、安全、心理或不道德的工作.【部分国家法律除外】）
[编辑] 为什么有童工?
尽管有相当多国家签定了《儿童权利公约》和国际劳工组织公约,为什么至今世界上,仍有众多儿童因工作而失去上学和接受职业培训的机会,有些更因此而健康受损、心灵受创,甚至失去性命?
[编辑] 政府并未严格执行有关公约
《儿童权利公约》和国际劳工组织公约的缔约国,需要因应公约的要求,制订相关法律以禁止国内使用童工和保障工作的儿童利益.然而,国法虽存,政府却因为各种问题而未有严格执行. 可是,实际执行以上法规的工作,政府交由当地劳动监察部门和公安局、贸易发展局、工商行政管理局、教育局等部门负责,而这些部门的人手严重不足,以致难于执法.
[编辑] 家庭贫穷
家庭贫穷是迫使儿童要工作的最主要原因.国际劳工组织在1996年的调查发现,儿童的薪酬占整个贫困家庭收入的五分一至四分一.这收入对不少贫穷户来说,可算举足轻重.贫困户不单缺乏资产,不少更落入欠债的困境当中.为偿还家庭的债务,家人让儿童成为“抵债童工”,要儿童为债主工作或是卖儿童给债主以抵销债务.
[编辑] 社会制度
在一些贫穷国家,政府法例是容许有童工的. 此外,不少贫穷国家也鼓励儿童当家佣,儿童的父母一般也认为这能改善孩子的生活质素,因为雇主会供应孩子衣食住行各方面的需要.可是,不少儿童佣工却因此陷入低工资、遭虐打或性侵犯,甚至是成为妓女的开始.
[编辑] 童工的工作待遇较差
国际劳工组织发现,不论是高危工作如采矿,或是简单工作如包装等,成人都是与儿童一起工作.尽管成人可以取代儿童进行这些工作,可是雇主为减低成本,于是雇用童工,因为童工的工资往往比成人少. 更重要的是,童工比较单纯和可靠,对雇员权利的认识亦较少,故此他们比成年工人更愿意受雇主控制,如愿意加班、不会旷工、不会组织工会及不会偷窃等.
[编辑] 工作性质
童工较多受聘于低技术、劳工密集的行业,例如服务业、餐饮业和制造业等.因为这些行业工作的前线工人,学历高低不是受聘与否的关键,也不会影响工作质素.此外,有些行业如足球生产、在衣服上钉珠等工作,雇主一般相信只有拥有轻巧、灵活双手的儿童才能做得好,故此聘用了大量低学历的童工.
[编辑] 对禁止童工政策的不同意见
部份新自由主义经济学者反对所有对劳动市场的管制,包括禁止童工.如米尔顿·佛利民和瓦特·布拉克所著《百辩经济学》（Defending the Undefendable）中都主张,禁止童工的法令反而会剥夺贫穷儿童求生存的机会,强制儿童去学校受教育而不允许工作,对儿童不一定是最好的选择.香港富商黎智英曾说：“我当过月入港币六十元的童工.那个时候要是有了法定最低工资,哪怕法定水平是月薪一百元吧,谁会多花四十元雇用我这个不懂事的十二岁小孩?找不到工作糊口,要不是饿死街头,我便大有可能铤而走险、作奸犯科了.”（《“争取最低工资”,壹周刊》第869期,2006.11.2）.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
A young boy recycling garbage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2006
Child labour, or child labor, refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries. Child labour was utilized to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the beginning of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during industrialization, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights.
Child labour is common in some parts of the world, and can be factory work, mining,[1] prostitution, quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour occurs in the informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses—far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay. As long as there is family poverty there will be child labor. [2]
According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 158 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labour worldwide, excluding child domestic labour.[3]
Banana
Main article: Children's rights
The United Nations and the International Labor Organization consider child labour exploitative,[4][5] with the UN stipulating, in article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that:
...States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. Although globally there is an estimated 250 milllion children working.[5]
The first general laws against child labour, the Factory Acts, were passed in Britain in the first half of the 19th century. Children younger than nine were not allowed to work and the work day of youth under the age of 18 was limited to twelve hours.[6]
In many developed countries,[7] it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works, excluding household chores or schoolwork. An employer is often not allowed to hire a child below a certain age. This minimum age depends on the country; child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without parents' consent and restrictions at age 16.
During the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.[8] Based on this understanding of the use of children as labourers, it is now considered by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer countries may allow or tolerate it.
In the 1990s every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. However according to the United Nations Foundation Somalia signed the convention in 2002, the delay of the signing was believed to been due to Somalia not having a government to sign the convention [9]. The CRC provides the strongest,[citation needed] most consistent[citation needed] international legal language prohibiting illegal child labour; however it does not make child labour illegal.
A boy repairing a tire in Gambia
Poor families often rely on the labours of their children for survival, and sometimes it is their only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not always in the industrial sector. Child labour is employed in subsistence agriculture and in the urban informal sector; child domestic work is also important. In order to benefit children, child labour prohibition has to address the dual challenge of providing them with both short-term income and long-term prospects. Some youth rights groups, however, feel that prohibiting work below a certain age violates human rights, reducing children's options and leaving them subject to the whims of those with money.[citation needed]
In 1999 the Global March Against Child Labour the movement began with a worldwide march when thousands of people marched together to jointly put forth the message against child labour. The march, which started on January 17, 1998, touched every corner of the globe, built immense awareness and led to high level of participation from the masses. This march finally culminated at the ILO Conference in Geneva. The voice of the marchers was heard and reflected in the draft of the ILO Convention against the worst forms of child labour. The following year, the Convention was unanimously adopted at the ILO Conference in Geneva. Today, with 169 countries having ratified the convention so far, it has become the fastest ratified convention in the history of ILO. A large role in this was played by the Global March through our member partners.
In an influential paper on "The Economics of Child Labor" in the American Economic Review (1998), Kaushik Basu and Pham Hoang Van argue that the primary cause of child labour is parental poverty. That being so, they caution against the use of a legislative ban against child labour, and argue that should be used only when there is reason to believe that a ban on child labour will cause adult wages to rise and so compensate adequately the households of the poor children. Child labour is still widely used today in many countries, including India and Bangladesh. CACL estimated that there are between 70 and 80 million child labourers in India.[10] Even though the respective national laws state that no child under the age of 14 may work, the law is often ignored. Children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target. They get paid as little as 1 cent per item produced.
Companies use children because they're cheaper to hire than adults. Companies that produce massive amounts of products like shoes and clothes often use these illegal techniques to have more profit.
Child labour happens for 61% in Asia, 32% in Africa, and 7% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations In Asia, 22% of the workforce is children. In Latin America, 17% of the workforce is children. The proportion of child laborers varies a lot among countries and even regions inside those countries.
To stop child labour the police often checks on factories that are suspected to use children.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Child labour in Victorian Britain
* 2 Defense of child labour
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links
[edit] Child labour in Victorian Britain
Main article: Victorian era
The Victorian era became notorious for employing young children in factories and mines and as chimney sweeps.[11] Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship, Charles Dickens for example worked at the age of 12 in the Blacking Factory, with his family in debtor's prison. The children of the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs and low wages.[12]
Agile boys were employed by the chimney sweeps; small children were employed to scramble under machinery to retrieve cotton bobbins; and children were also employed to work in coal mines to crawl through tunnels too narrow and low for adults. Children also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers and other cheap goods.[12] Some children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid 18th Century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80 hour weeks. A high number of children also worked as prostitutes.[13] Children as young as three were put to work. In coal mines children began work at the age of five and generally died before the age of 25. Many children (and adults) worked 16 hour days. As early as 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts were passed to regulate the working hours of workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a royal commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11-18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9-11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine were no longer permitted to work. This act however only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10 hour working days. [13]
This order by the Honourable Chief Justice comes when the government is taking an extremely retrogressive stance on the issue of child labour in sweatshops in India and threatening 'retaliatory measures' against child rights organisations. [3]
In a parallel development, Global March Against Child Labour and BBA are in dialogue with the GAP Inc. and other stakeholders to work out a positive strategy to prevent the entry of child labour in to sweatshops and device a mechanism of monitoring and remedial action. GAP Inc. Senior Vice President, Dan Henkle in a statement said: "We have been making steady progress, and the children are now under the care of the local government. As our policy requires, the vendor with which our order was originally placed will be required to provide the children with access to schooling and job training, pay them an ongoing wage and guarantee them jobs as soon as they reach the legal working age. We will now work with the local government and with Global March to ensure that our vendor fulfils these obligations." [4] [5]
Austrian school economist Murray Rothbard also defended child labor, stating that British and American children of the pre- and post-Industrial Revolution lived and suffered in infinitely worse conditions where jobs were not available for them and went "voluntarily and gladly" to work in factories.[18]
However, the British historian and socialist E.P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class draws a qualitative distinction between child domestic work and participation in the wider (waged) labor market.[8] Further, the usefulness of the experience of the industrial revolution in making predictions about current trends has been disputed. Economic historian Hugh Cunningham, author of Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500, notes that:
"Fifty years ago it might have been assumed that, just as child labor had declined in the developed world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it would also, in a trickle-down fashion, in the rest of the world. Its failure to do that, and its re-emergence in the developed world, raise questions about its role in any economy, whether national or global."[17]
Child laborers on a farm in Maine, October 1940
Big Bill Haywood, a leading labor organizer and leader of the Western Federation of Miners and a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World famously claimed "the worst thief is he who steals the playtime of children!" [19]
According to Thomas DeGregori, an economics professor at the University of Houston, in an article published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank operating in Washington D.C., "it is clear that technological and economic change are vital ingredients in getting children out of the workplace and into schools. Then they can grow to become productive adults and live longer, healthier lives. However, in poor countries like Bangladesh, working children are essential for survival in many families, as they were in our own heritage until the late 19th century. So, while the struggle to end child labour is necessary, getting there often requires taking different routes -- and, sadly, there are many political obstacles.
童工
维基百科,自由的百科全书
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童工 是指雇用／利用儿童从事经济生产活动,包括当童星、报童、少年兵、工厂工人等. 此类童工是指小于合法年龄的人,例如18岁或者20岁,包括青少年及儿童.在很长一段时间,童工并不被认为是一个问题,当义务教育和劳工与儿童权利深入人心以后,这才成为一个广为争论的话题.
童工的工资一般比较成年人为低,不过,著名的童星是例外,比如哈利波特男主角. 因此雇用童工被很多国际组织认为是剥削行径,比如联合国,国际劳工组织.
童工的最常见形式是少年兵和雏妓,其次是合法的儿童演员和歌手,还有就是在学校假期时进行的农业、工业劳作.一些协助家人工作,如到家人开设的商店帮忙的儿童也算是童工的一类.
童工在不少战乱国家地区是常见的,因为成年人非自然死亡,人均寿命短,成年人生产力少,“穷苦家庭早当家”,家中没有生产力,只有儿童或老人. 在没有社会福利安全网的地区（第三世界）,被发达国家强权禁止童工,又是另一种无奈.
童工之害：儿童没有受教育的机会,他们在成长期失去学习广泛文化知识的机会,令当地区无望转营成为知识型经济社会.
目录
[隐藏]
* 1 分类
* 2 工种分类
o 2.1 轻量工作（light work）
o 2.2 危险工作（hazardous work）
o 2.3 最恶劣形式的工作（the worst form of work）
* 3 为什么有童工?
o 3.1 政府并未严格执行有关公约
o 3.2 家庭贫穷
o 3.3 社会制度
o 3.4 童工的工作待遇较差
o 3.5 工作性质
* 4 对禁止童工政策的不同意见
* 5 相关
* 6 外部参考
[编辑] 分类
根据国际劳工组织（International Labour Organization）公约138及182条,童工可分为三类：
* 11岁或以下、从事任何经济活动的儿童；
* 12至14岁、从事适量“轻量工作”（light work）以外的经济活动的儿童；
* 18岁以下、从事任何“危险工作”（hazardous work）的儿童.
[编辑] 工种分类
根据国际劳工标准,尽管儿童可以工作,可是工种的危险程度以及对儿童身心的影响程度是相当关键的.工作普遍分为三类,包括“轻量工作”（light work）、“危险工作”（hazardous work）和“最恶劣形式的工作”（the worst form of work）：
[编辑] 轻量工作（light work）
这是指该工作不会损害工作者的健康和发展,并且不阻碍他们上学和接受职业培训的机会. 一般国家都会容许13至15岁的儿童从事“轻量工作”,但有关工作时数和种类则因地而异.而这些工作可包括家务清洁、轻巧的农耕种植工作、店务员、售票员、送报员、包装、运送等.
[编辑] 危险工作（hazardous work）
不论是工作性质本身或是工作地点,只要会危及工作者的健康、安全、心理或不道德的,这类工作便属于“危险工作”. 国际劳工组织建议各国必需立法规管“危险工作”,并只能让18岁或以上的人士从事这些工作.一般来说,这些工作包括采矿、编织毛毯、制造砖块和玻璃、建造业、制造业、贩卖酒精、水底工作（underwater work）、控制机械、街头贩卖及娱乐事业（如在夜总会、酒吧、赌场、马戏团等工作）等.
[编辑] 最恶劣形式的工作（the worst form of work）
这些工作包括将人当作奴隶、贩卖、用作抵债；强迫参与战争；卖淫、从事色情事业；制造或贩卖毒品,以及所有危及工作者的健康、安全、心理或不道德的工作. 而所有18岁以下的青少年是严禁参与或从事这类工作.（当然,就算是成年人也不能从事卖淫、制造或贩卖毒品以及所有危及工作者的健康、安全、心理或不道德的工作.【部分国家法律除外】）
[编辑] 为什么有童工?
尽管有相当多国家签定了《儿童权利公约》和国际劳工组织公约,为什么至今世界上,仍有众多儿童因工作而失去上学和接受职业培训的机会,有些更因此而健康受损、心灵受创,甚至失去性命?
[编辑] 政府并未严格执行有关公约
《儿童权利公约》和国际劳工组织公约的缔约国,需要因应公约的要求,制订相关法律以禁止国内使用童工和保障工作的儿童利益.然而,国法虽存,政府却因为各种问题而未有严格执行. 可是,实际执行以上法规的工作,政府交由当地劳动监察部门和公安局、贸易发展局、工商行政管理局、教育局等部门负责,而这些部门的人手严重不足,以致难于执法.
[编辑] 家庭贫穷
家庭贫穷是迫使儿童要工作的最主要原因.国际劳工组织在1996年的调查发现,儿童的薪酬占整个贫困家庭收入的五分一至四分一.这收入对不少贫穷户来说,可算举足轻重.贫困户不单缺乏资产,不少更落入欠债的困境当中.为偿还家庭的债务,家人让儿童成为“抵债童工”,要儿童为债主工作或是卖儿童给债主以抵销债务.
[编辑] 社会制度
在一些贫穷国家,政府法例是容许有童工的. 此外,不少贫穷国家也鼓励儿童当家佣,儿童的父母一般也认为这能改善孩子的生活质素,因为雇主会供应孩子衣食住行各方面的需要.可是,不少儿童佣工却因此陷入低工资、遭虐打或性侵犯,甚至是成为妓女的开始.
[编辑] 童工的工作待遇较差
国际劳工组织发现,不论是高危工作如采矿,或是简单工作如包装等,成人都是与儿童一起工作.尽管成人可以取代儿童进行这些工作,可是雇主为减低成本,于是雇用童工,因为童工的工资往往比成人少. 更重要的是,童工比较单纯和可靠,对雇员权利的认识亦较少,故此他们比成年工人更愿意受雇主控制,如愿意加班、不会旷工、不会组织工会及不会偷窃等.
[编辑] 工作性质
童工较多受聘于低技术、劳工密集的行业,例如服务业、餐饮业和制造业等.因为这些行业工作的前线工人,学历高低不是受聘与否的关键,也不会影响工作质素.此外,有些行业如足球生产、在衣服上钉珠等工作,雇主一般相信只有拥有轻巧、灵活双手的儿童才能做得好,故此聘用了大量低学历的童工.
[编辑] 对禁止童工政策的不同意见
部份新自由主义经济学者反对所有对劳动市场的管制,包括禁止童工.如米尔顿·佛利民和瓦特·布拉克所著《百辩经济学》（Defending the Undefendable）中都主张,禁止童工的法令反而会剥夺贫穷儿童求生存的机会,强制儿童去学校受教育而不允许工作,对儿童不一定是最好的选择.香港富商黎智英曾说：“我当过月入港币六十元的童工.那个时候要是有了法定最低工资,哪怕法定水平是月薪一百元吧,谁会多花四十元雇用我这个不懂事的十二岁小孩?找不到工作糊口,要不是饿死街头,我便大有可能铤而走险、作奸犯科了.”（《“争取最低工资”,壹周刊》第869期,2006.11.2）.