Child Labour & Work

Child Labor and Child Work

Children are engaged in wide variety of works. The conditions and nature of their work vary from occupations where children are able to develop responsibility

and skills, and combine work with schooling, to conditions of extreme hazards and exploitation. The extent to which work is harmful or beneficial to children depends on number of factors. A distinction is therefore necessary to be made

between “Child Labour” and “Child Work”.

The former is defined as “work for wages” and carries the implication of being detrimental to the growth and development of children whereas the latter is thought to be as “work in the context of the household” and is positively evaluated (Poudyal, 2007).

Child work can be beneficial and can enhance a child’s physical, mental, and spiritual, moral and social development without interfering with schooling, recreation and the rest. Helping parent in their household activities and business after school in their free time contributes positively to the development of child. When such work is truly part of socialization process and means of transmitting skills from parents to child it is not child labour. Through such work children can increase their status as family members and citizen and gain confidence and self esteem.

 The distinction between child labour and child work largely depends on the conditions under which children work rather than the type of work they do. In practices many children work and have positive influence on child development. The problem is that when the conditions of work change the picture changes dramatically. The conditions under which child work can be viewed as a process of learning skills development and as educative in nature, and child labour as hazardous , exploitative and intolerable as shown in the below table. Any work situation where there is violation of child’s right is a situation of the child labour.