On Thurs­day, June 12, T&T will join coun­tries around the world to ob­serve World Day Against Child Labour.

Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO) and UNICEF, at the start of 2020, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 160 mil­lion chil­dren (63 mil­lion girls and 97 mil­lion boys) world­wide were in­volved in child labour. Up­on a deep­er ex­am­i­na­tion of the da­ta, 79 mil­lion chil­dren were in­volved in haz­ardous work, which com­pro­mis­es their health, safe­ty, and moral de­vel­op­ment.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO) de­fines child labour "as work that de­prives chil­dren of their child­hood, their po­ten­tial, and their dig­ni­ty, and that is harm­ful to phys­i­cal and men­tal de­vel­op­ment. It refers to work that:

● is men­tal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly, so­cial­ly, or moral­ly dan­ger­ous and harm­ful to chil­dren; and/or

● in­ter­feres with their school­ing by de­priv­ing them of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tend school, oblig­ing them to leave school pre­ma­ture­ly, or re­quir­ing them to at­tempt to com­bine school at­ten­dance with ex­ces­sive­ly long and heavy work."

Ac­cord­ing to the ILO Con­ven­tion NO.182, the "worst forms of child labour in­volve chil­dren be­ing en­slaved, sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies, ex­posed to se­ri­ous haz­ards and ill­ness­es and/or left to fend for them­selves on the streets of large cities – of­ten at a very ear­ly age." These will in­clude:

● all forms of slav­ery, such as the sale and traf­fick­ing of chil­dren

● of­fer­ing chil­dren for pros­ti­tu­tion and pornog­ra­phy

● of­fer­ing chil­dren for il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties such as traf­fick­ing drugs

● Work, by its in­her­ent na­ture, will re­sult in harm to the health and well-be­ing of chil­dren

(https://www.ilo.org/top­ics/child-labour/what-child-labour)

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in sports pro­vides chil­dren with phys­i­o­log­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and so­cial ben­e­fits, such as dis­ci­pline, re­spect, and tol­er­ance, that can pos­i­tive­ly im­pact their ca­reers and key re­la­tion­ships through­out their life­time (Aguilar, 2018). How­ev­er, if chil­dren par­tic­i­pate in any area of the sports in­dus­try that is detri­men­tal to their over­all health, well-be­ing, and or at the ex­pense of their ed­u­ca­tion, then there is a need for in­ter­ven­tion to as­cer­tain if Child Labour or any form of ex­ploita­tion is tak­ing place (White Pa­per Child Labour in Sport: Pro­tect­ing the Rights of Child Ath­letes; 2022).

Pe­ter Don­nel­ly, speak­ing at Play the Game 2022, said, "Chil­dren train­ing for high-per­for­mance sport fits many of the ac­cept­ed de­f­i­n­i­tions of child labour." He stat­ed that at the elite lev­el, "chil­dren are ex­pect­ed to train in­ten­sive­ly from an ear­ly age...their train­ing regime is po­ten­tial­ly haz­ardous..."

Don­nel­ly's per­spec­tive was re­in­forced by an in­de­pen­dent re­view by Anne Whyte QC [2022] of more than 400 sub­mis­sions on British Gym­nas­tics [2008-2020] that re­port­ed nu­mer­ous abu­sive prac­tices, such as phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and sex­u­al. Whyte al­so re­port­ed coach­es en­gaged in ex­ces­sive weigh­ing and con­trol, as well as a sys­tem that pri­ori­tised the pur­suit of medals over child pro­tec­tion.

The is­sue of child labour in sports gained mo­men­tum in the 1990s when me­dia cov­er­age high­light­ed sport­ing goods man­u­fac­tur­ers were us­ing un­der­age chil­dren in var­i­ous coun­tries at far less than the min­i­mum wage to man­u­fac­ture foot­balls, gar­ments and oth­er sport­ing para­pher­na­lia.

Ac­cord­ing to Green­house (1997), "close to 10,000 Pak­istani chil­dren un­der the age of 14 work[ed] up to 10 hours a day stitch­ing the leather balls, of­ten for the equiv­a­lent of $1.20 a day."

He stat­ed that the "Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion of Pak­istan es­ti­mate[d] that chil­dren ma[de] 10 to 20 per­cent of all soc­cer balls pro­duced in Pak­istan, which (ac­count­ed for) three-fourths of the 30 mil­lion to 40 mil­lion hand-sewn soc­cer balls sold each year world­wide."

In an at­tempt to ad­dress the is­sue, a plan was de­vel­oped con­sist­ing of ma­jor sport­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, ILO, and child ad­vo­ca­cy groups such as Save the Chil­dren and UNICEF to elim­i­nate child labour in the sports in­dus­try. (https://www.ny­times.com/1997/02/14/world/sport­ing-goods-con­cerns-agree-to-com­bat-sale-of-soc­cer-balls-made-by-chil­dren.html)

Sim­i­lar­ly, Do­her­ty [2012] stat­ed that "In In­dia's... poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed sports ball in­dus­try, chil­dren [were] still work­ing, some­times forced, in the painstak­ing and painful hand-stitch­ing of foot­balls, net­balls, and soc­cer balls." The chil­dren were em­ployed un­of­fi­cial­ly through sub­con­trac­tors and were paid for each ball they stitched. Ac­cord­ing to Do­her­ty, most stitch­ers earned about one Aus­tralian dol­lar per day, the equiv­a­lent of 50-60 ru­pees.

Stitch­ing in­volved chil­dren" sit[ting], hunched on low stools, for be­tween five and eight hours a day, six or sev­en days a week. Stitch­ers of­ten end up with chron­ic back in­juries from the un­nat­ur­al sit­ting po­si­tion."

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, "they reg­u­lar­ly pierce their fin­gers with the sharp, heavy nee­dles, or slice their hands on the wax-coat­ed string." Fur­ther­more, "work­ing in­side and in the dark, as most child labour­ers [kept] from the au­thor­i­ties, strain[ed] child stitch­ers' eyes and le[d] to vi­sion dis­or­ders."

When chil­dren were kept away from school to work, it was a clear vi­o­la­tion of the 2010 Right to Ed­u­ca­tion Act, which made it com­pul­so­ry for chil­dren un­der 14 to at­tend school. (https://www.smh.com.au/na­tion­al/poor-chil­dren-made-to-stitch-sports-balls-in-sweat­shops-20120921-26c0z.html)

Sports can play a vi­tal role in com­bat­ting child labour by pro­vid­ing chil­dren with op­por­tu­ni­ties for ed­u­ca­tion, per­son­al de­vel­op­ment, and a safe en­vi­ron­ment away from ex­ploita­tive work. The in­te­gra­tion of sports in­to ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes has the po­ten­tial to keep chil­dren in school, re­duce dropout rates, and pro­vide a safe out­let for their en­er­gy and tal­ents. Fur­ther­more, sports or­gan­i­sa­tions and fed­er­a­tions must im­ple­ment poli­cies to pre­vent child labour and pro­mote eth­i­cal prac­tices in the pro­duc­tion of sports equip­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to a Child Labour Am­bas­sador, Vish­wanath Maraj, "The right to play sports builds my self-es­teem, en­ables me to as­sume lead­er­ship roles, and at the same time just have fun. While some chil­dren do not like sports, I en­cour­age them to have fun, be ac­tive, and not take up all their time on their de­vices, as child­hood years will go fast, and you will want to re­mem­ber that you have the right to have fun, play, and play sports."

Maraj ex­pounds fur­ther on his role as a child labour am­bas­sador of the Min­istry of Labour, Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment “I en­dure my role with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and se­ri­ous­ness be­cause I be­lieve every child should have a right to:

a) Ed­u­ca­tion

b) Pro­tec­tion against dis­crim­i­na­tion

c) Avoid­ance of do­ing haz­ardous work

He states fur­ther that "every child de­serves to en­joy their child­hood and ex­pe­ri­ence fun times. No child should ever feel bur­dened. I love learn­ing about chil­dren’s rights and en­joy shar­ing these with oth­er chil­dren at my School and any­where else so that they can un­der­stand that they have rights and at the same time, let­ting them know that the rights they have should be ho­n­oured."

As a na­tion, par­ents, guardians, teach­ers, busi­ness­es, coach­es, sports ad­min­is­tra­tors, civ­il so­ci­ety, and chil­dren must do their part to iden­ti­fy child labour and not turn a blind eye but work to­geth­er to end its oc­cur­rence. One child work­ing be­low the le­gal age of 16 is one child too many whether in the field of sport or on the road­way sell­ing on con­struc­tion sites etc. Let us take care of our na­tion’s chil­dren and stop child labour in T&T.