Child Welfare, term used to refer to a broad range of social programmes that contribute to the

well-being of children, usually adapted to the needs of children whose families do not have the
means or the inclination to take proper care of them.

Few efforts were made by any government to protect the health and welfare of children before
the advent of the 20th century. In 1959 the United Nations adopted the Declaration of the Rights
of the Child, which affirmed the rights of children everywhere to receive adequate care from
parents and the community. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989,
attempted to consolidate international law on the basic rights of children to survival, education,
and protection from abuse and exploitation.

Universal programmes of child allowances (financial grants) for every family are common, as
are subsidized medical care, numerous day-care centres, and communal foster care, although the
extent of these programmes and their availability vary from country to country. Both the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are working
with the governments of developing nations to reduce their high mortality rates (by comparison
with those of the West). The UN organizations provide medical supplies and technical aid. Some
progress has been made, but malnutrition and disease still cause the death of many thousands of
young children every year and affect many more. A UN report on North Korea published in
November 1998, for instance, indicated that nearly two-thirds of North Korea's young children
were seriously malnourished, a result of chronic food shortages and a virtual collapse of the
public health system.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2007. © 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Employment of Children in Factories

Children have always worked, to varying degrees, in nearly all cultures, but with the development of
the Industrial Revolution, child labour in the new “manufactories” was on a larger scale. In many ways
children were a more economic source of labour for employers than adults because they were small
and nimble, usually complaisant and docile, and perhaps most importantly, were cheap. In 1833 a
Factory Act was passed regulating the conditions in which children worked, one of the first effective
pieces of labour protection legislation.

Employment of Children in Factories

Excerpt from the Report of Commissioners on the Employment of Children in Factories

(1833)

In England, in the north-eastern district, in a few factories the regular hours of labour do not
exceed eleven. In general, both at Leicester and Nottingham, they are not less than twelve.
“Eleven hours is called a day at Leeds;” but it is seldom that in this district the hours are really
less than twelve, while occasionally they are thirteen. In Manchester the regular hours of work
are twelve. There are many places in the western district, as at Coventry and Birmingham, in
which the regular hours of labour do not exceed ten; while it appears that some of the
workpeople labour upon an average not more than nine hours daily. In these towns indeed there
is no factory labour properly so called, for the operatives, with few exceptions, work at their own
houses. But in some of the factories in the great clothing district the hours of labour are the same;
seldom if ever exceeding ten. In general, however, they are somewhat longer; both in the carpet
and in the clothing factories they are seldom less than eleven and scarcely ever more than twelve;
this is the average; for there is considerable irregularity in both; in the carpet factory, partly on
account “of the dissipated habits of many of the weavers who remain idle for two or three days,
and make up their lost time by working extra hours to finish their piece on Saturday,” and partly
because “the weaver has often to wait for material from the master manufacturer where particular
shades of colour may have to be died for the carpet he is weaving; while the clothing factories,
being for the most part worked by water power, cannot of course be carried on with regularity”.
One of the witnesses, a proprietor, states that owing to the want of a due supply of water the
workpeople sometimes cannot work more than three hours a day in summer; and that on an
average they do not, in the summer season, work more than six hours a day. Another witness, an
operative, deposes that his children in the factory in general go away after nine hours work, and
that they play so much that he does not think they really work above four or six hours. And a
third witness, a proprietor, (chairman of the woollen manufacturers of Gloucestershire,) deposes
that in his own factory, in those parts in which children are employed, the regular hours are from
nine in the morning until four in the evening, deducting an hour for dinner; and that for the last
three years the children have worked only seven hours daily. In all the districts these hours are
exclusive of the time allowed for meals, and of time lost from the machinery going wrong, and
from holidays...
The present inquiry has likewise brought together a large body of evidence relative to those
various circumstances connected with the state of factories which concur with the nature of the
employment in exerting an important influence on the health of the workpeople, whether
children or adults, but which more especially affects the health of the former. Such concurrent
circumstances are, the situation of the factory, the state of the drainage about the building, the
size and height of the workrooms, the perfect or imperfect ventilation, the degree of temperature,
the nature and quantity of the effluvia evolved, whether necessarily or not necessarily, in the
different processes of manufacture, the conveniences afforded to the work-people for washing,
and changing their clothes, on leaving the factory, and the habitual state both of the factory and
of the operatives as to cleanliness. Details, which place in a striking point of view, on the one
hand, the conservative influence of careful and judicious attention to such concurrent causes in
the general arrangements of the establishment, and on the other, the pernicious consequences that
result from inattention to them, will be found in the account given of the state of individual
factories in most of the Reports of Sir David Barry, in the Reports from Scotland in general, and
in many parts of the Reports from Leicester, Nottingham, and the western district. In relation to
all those circumstances, the Reports of the Commissioners agree in showing that the large
factories, and those recently built, have a prodigious advantage over the old and small mills. The
working-rooms in the large and modern buildings are, without exception, more spacious and
lofty; the buildings are better drained; more effectual expedients are adopted to secure free
ventilation and to maintain a more equable and moderate temperature.
It is of the old and small mills that the report pretty uniformly is—”dirty; low-roofed; ill-
ventilated; ill-drained; no conveniences for washing or dressing; no contrivance for carrying off
dust and other effluvia; machinery not boxed in; passages so narrow that they can hardly be
defined; some of the flats so low that it is scarcely possible to stand upright in the centre of the
rooms;” while the account of the recent structures and the large establishments in general is
“infinitely better managed in respect to ventilation, height of roofs, and freedom from danger to
the workers near the machinery, by the greater width of the passages in the working-rooms, and
by the more effectual boxing in of the machinery, than those on a small scale.”
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2007. © 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Child Labour
I INTRODUCTION

Child Labour, designation formerly applied to the practice of employing young children in factories,
now used to denote the employment of minors generally, especially in work that may interfere with
their education or endanger their health. Throughout the ages and in all cultures children joined with
their parents to work in the fields, in the marketplace, and around the home as soon as they were old
enough to perform simple tasks. The use of child labour was not regarded a social problem until the
introduction of the factory system.

II HISTORY IN GREAT BRITAIN

Child Labour
Child labour has been exploited around the world. In Britain it was especially prevalent during the Industrial
Revolution, with children sometimes working as many as 16 hours a day. Conditions were often dangerous,
especially for those who worked in the mines, and the children usually received little education. Campaigns for
improved conditions and enforceable legislation resulted in worldwide reforms, although child labour is still a
problem in many countries in the late 20th century.
Hulton Getty Picture Collection
As the first country to experience the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain was the first to exhibit
particular problems of child labour associated with the factory system. During the latter part of the
18th century, owners of cotton mills collected orphans and children of poor parents throughout the
country, obtaining their services merely for the cost of maintaining them. In some cases children five
and six years of age were forced to work from 13 to 16 hours a day.

Social reformers attempted as early as 1802 to obtain legislative restrictions against the worst
features of the child-labour system, but little was done even to enforce existing laws limiting hours of
labour and establishing a minimum age for employment. Conditions as bad as those imposed on
pauper children rapidly developed in enterprises employing non-pauper children. Often with the
approval of political, social, and religious leaders, children were permitted to labour in hazardous
occupations such as mining. The resultant social evils included illiteracy, further impoverishment of
poor families, and a multitude of diseased and injured children.

Popular agitation for reform steadily increased. The first significant British legislation was enacted in
1878, when the minimum age of employees was raised to 10 years and employers were required to
restrict employment of children between the ages of 10 and 14 to alternate days or consecutive half
days. In addition to making every Saturday a half holiday, this legislation also limited the workday of
children between 14 and 18 years of age to 12 hours, with an intermission of 2 hours for meals and
rest.

III HISTORY OF CHILD LABOUR ELSEWHERE

Child Labour in Vermont

Addie Laird, a 12-year-old girl, worked along with many other children in Vermont’s spinning mills until the early
1900s, when Congress passed legislation that made child labour illegal.
National Archives
Meanwhile the industrial system developed in other countries, bringing with it abuses of child labour
similar to those in Great Britain. In the early years of the 19th century children between the ages of 7
and 12 years made up one third of the work force in US factories. The shortage of adult male
labourers, who were needed for agriculture, contributed to the exploitation of child labourers. In
addition, the majority of adults cooperated with employers, helping them to recruit young factory
hands from indigent families.

Child Working in Mill

Industrial expansion after the American Civil War led to an urgent demand for workers. To satisfy their need for
workers, industries began to employ young children. Unfortunately, the exploitation of these young workers went
on for many years before regulation stopped it. Many children were disfigured or killed while working at sometimes
dangerous jobs. Lewis Hine, an American photographer who pioneered social documentary, photographed this child
tending a loom in a North Carolina cotton mill.
Library of Congress

Legislation followed to check illiterary among child labourers, establish minimum working ages and
maximum working hours, and restricting child labour in dangerous industries. The first International
Labour Conference in Berlin in 1890 was the first concerted international attempt to formulate
standards for employment of children. The International Association for Labour, founded in Basel in
1900 with branches in over 16 countries, was organized to press for statutes on child labour to be
incorporated into international labour legislation. Abuses were gradually addressed, so that now all
developed countries operate extensive restrictions on the employment of children.

Modern legislation against child labour in the developed world is usually tied to educational legislation
on school attendance. Though most industries and businesses are prohibited from employing underage
staff on a full-time basis, many children are able to work as newspaper deliverers and sales personnel,
as part-time workers at home, or even as actors and performers in radio, television, and films.
IV INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS

Child Labour in the 20th Century

Going into the 21st century, child labour remains a serious problem in many parts of the world, despite the efforts
to combat it made by the International Labour Organization (ILO) since its inception in 1919. Many child labourers,
like the young boy shown here working in a shoe factory, live in underdeveloped countries in Latin America, Africa,
and Asia. Typically they work in poor conditions, and have little or no chance of receiving a proper education. Often
their meagre income is necessary for the survival of their families.
Danny Lehman/Corbis

In the latter part of the 20th century, child labour remains a serious problem in many parts of the
world. Many of these children live in underdeveloped countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Their
living conditions are crude and their chances for education minimal. The meagre income they bring in
is, however, necessary for the survival of their families. In other cases, children are bonded, working
to pay off an initial cash advance from the employer with escalating interest that leaves them
effectively slaves.

In some countries industrialization has created working conditions for children that rival the worst
features of the 19th-century factories and mines. In some countries legal provisions are evaded
through clauses which permit work within the family. Precise statistics are difficult to arrive at because
child labour is formally illegal almost everywhere, and consequently authorities have the greatest
difficulty quantifying the problem, let alone controlling it. Anti-Slavery International gives the following
estimates by country for children below the age of 15 enduring exploitative child labour, although
these countries do not necessarily have the worst records and others with poor records may have
been excluded: Bangladesh: 5-6 million; Brazil: up to 5 million; Egypt: 1.4 million; Guatemala: 1
million; India: up to 40 million; Indonesia: over 2 million; Mexico: up to 8 million; Nepal: up to 2
million: Nigeria: 12 million; Pakistan: over 2 million; the Philippines: 5 million; Thailand: 4 million.
Widely accepted estimates put child labour at 2 to 10 per cent of the labour force in some areas of
Latin America and Asia, and more than 10 per cent in some Middle Eastern countries. The continuing
problem of child labour is evidenced by the fact that in October 1998 Pakistan's carpet manufacturers
were given up to 10 years to remove child labourers from their workforce, part of an agreement
reached with the International Labour Organization (ILO). The agreement followed similar
arrangements to phase out child labour in Pakistan's soccer ball industry and in Bangladesh's clothing
industry.

Sweatshop Conditions
The young girls shown here work long hours at a loom, weaving a rug. Child labour is commonplace in sweatshops
around the world, despite international law and trade agreements attempting to address the problem.
Barry Iverson/Woodfin Camp and Associates, Inc.

Child-labour problems are not, of course, limited to developing nations. They occur wherever poverty
exists in Europe and the United States. In Great Britain, the Low Pay Unit recently estimated that up
to 2 million children were engaged in part-time work: the worst record in the European Union. A
growing concern in recent years has been the increase in prostitution among youngsters in urban
centres.

The most important efforts to eliminate child-labour abuses throughout the world come from the ILO,
founded in 1919 and now a special agency of the United Nations. The organization has introduced
several child-labour conventions among its members, including a minimum age of 16 years for
admission to all work (whether within the family or not), a higher minimum age for specific types of
employment, compulsory medical examinations, and regulation of night work. The ILO, however, does
not have the power to enforce these conventions; it depends on voluntary compliance of member
nations. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, includes
restrictions on child labour and is formally binding on all countries that have ratified it, but it also has
no enforcement mechanisms attached. A new treaty, known as the Worst Forms of Child Labour
Convention, taking effect in late 2000 and intended to outlaw the most serious abuses of children,
such as slavery, debt bondage, and child prostitution, was passed unanimously by members of the ILO
in June 1999. Again, the treaty is dependent on ratifying nations enforcing it within their borders, and
contains no sanctions against violating parties. UN estimates stated that by the year 2000 there were
375 million child labourers worldwide.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2007. © 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.