On Sat­ur­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go joined coun­tries around the world to ob­serve World Day Against Child Labour with the theme: ACT Now: End Child Labour. Across the globe in­clu­sive of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Child Labour pos­es a tremen­dous threat to the lives of chil­dren. The In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO) has stat­ed that the num­ber of chil­dren in Child Labour has in­creased to 160 mil­lion world­wide rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of 8.4 mil­lion chil­dren in the last four (4) years. There is no gain­say­ing that the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in ex­ac­er­bat­ing con­di­tions that give rise to child labour in many coun­tries es­pe­cial­ly low-in­come economies.

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 well­be­ing of chil­dren https://www.ilo.org/glob­al/top­ics/child-labour/lang--en/in­dex.htm

In ad­di­tion to de­vel­op­ing sport­ing skills, chil­dren who en­gage in sport reg­u­lar­ly al­so ac­crue im­por­tant 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). On the oth­er hand, if chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ing 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.

Can Child Labour take place in the Sport In­dus­try? The is­sue of child labour in sport 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, 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

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in 1997, a “Mod­el Code of Con­duct for glob­al busi­ness prac­tices that ad­dress work­ing con­di­tions in fac­to­ries abroad was de­vel­oped.” https://www.sportand­dev.org/en/learn-more/eco­nom­ic-de­vel­op­ment/ex­ploita­tion-and-child-pro­tec­tion-sport-0

Do­her­ty (2012) re­port­ing on a Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to child labour stat­ed that “de­spite sig­nif­i­cant re­forms to In­dia's mas­sive but 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 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 Rights to Ed­u­ca­tion Act that 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

While the sports in­dus­try in­clu­sive of the sports goods man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go is at a nascent stage, it is im­per­a­tive that ex­ist­ing and po­ten­tial man­u­fac­tur­ers, along with par­ents, guardians, chil­dren, coach­es, and sports ad­min­is­tra­tors be­come knowl­edge­able of child labour in­clu­sive of the role they can per­form in pre­vent­ing its oc­cur­rence.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Na­tion­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee for the Elim­i­na­tion and Pre­ven­tion of Child un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Labour was es­tab­lished in 2018 with a clear man­date of de­vel­op­ing a Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy and Plan of Ac­tion against Child Labour. The Min­istry of Labour in con­junc­tion with a wide cross-sec­tion of oth­er min­istries, state agen­cies and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions who com­prise mem­bers of this Com­mit­tee are work­ing to­ward the de­vel­op­ment of the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy and Plan of Ac­tion against Child Labour. The Na­tion­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee is guid­ed by the ILO Con­ven­tions on Child Labour to en­sure that cas­es of child labour as were high­light­ed in the sports goods man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­try does not take place in any in­dus­try in Trinidad and To­ba­go. De­spite the chal­lenges pre­sent­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the Min­istry of Labour con­tin­ues to keep the pop­u­la­tion in­formed about child labour and how they can all con­tribute to­ward the theme for 2021: ACT Now: End Child Labour. Re­mem­ber T&T, every­one has a role to play in en­sur­ing a Child Labour Free Trinidad and To­ba­go across all in­dus­tries.