The Problem of Child Labour.

An eight year old boy making his livelihood by showing a playful monkey in a running train inIndia in 2011.

See also: Children's rights

Child labour is still common in some parts of the world, it can be factory work, mining,^[17] 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."^[18]

According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labour worldwide, excluding child domestic labour.^[19] The United Nations and the International Labor Organization consider child labour exploitative,^[20][21] 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 million children working.^[21]

A boy repairing a tire in Gambia

In a recent paper, Basu and Van (1998)^[23] 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.^[24]

Child labour accounts for 22% of the workforce in Asia, 32% in Africa, 17% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations.^[25] The proportion of child labourers varies greatly among countries and even regions inside those countries.

Young girl working on a loom in Aït Benhaddou,Morocco in May 2008.

Defense of child labour

Child workers on a farm in Maine, October 1940

Wasim, a child labourer, works at a tea stall - cleaning glasses and serving customers, in Indore, India.( 9 July 2010)