Our approach is to phase out child labour in a way that does not harm the livelihoods of families, focusing with urgency on the most harmful work. Access to education is key.
Our approach
We believe that children’s work is not a uniform activity and we must recognise that, while some forms of work violate children’s development and well-being, other types of work activities do not.
We accept neither blanket bans of all child work, nor an approach that promotes children’s work in general. We believe that different responses are appropriate for different forms of work and different working children.
We also seek to ensure that boys and girls fully and meaningfully participate in decisions that affect them. Children should be enabled to exercise their rights and the opportunities available to them should be expanded so that work is always a choice, not a necessity.
All our work is based on a rights-based approach. Rights are interdependent and what affects one right will usually affect others. This holistic view of rights means it is crucial to gain a full understanding of the links between children’s right and the relationship between them, for example the right to be free from harmful work alongside other rights, such as the right to survival.
Save the Children consults with children on their views on work. Some children do not consider unpaid activities as work, whilst for others it is important to include unpaid activities so that housework is recognised. Some argue that work is something dignified as it contributes to their survival and the survival of their families whilst others see work as harmful or exploitative. Save the Children believes children’s views, whatever they are, should always be an important part of the debate and the planning of our programmes.
There has always been much discussion and debate about whether the long-term aim should be to eliminate all forms of child work, and over the best ways this could be achieved. Save the Children welcomes a unified position, emerging over recent years, which focuses on the unconditional worst forms of child labour and their eradication. In the anniversary year of the abolition of the slave trade, SCUK published the report ‘Small Hands of Slavery’ which states clearly that child slavery is indeed continuing today, on a huge scale.
This project is funded by the European Union