Child labour Archives - Australian Cardijn Institute

Former YCW fulltime worker, Martin Delaney, reports on his PhD research project.

Consider this:
• 160 million children in child labour worldwide (roughly 1 in 10 children)
• this number is rising
• despite legislation in many countries outlawing the employment of children below 15 years of age.

Risks:
• Increased risk of physical and mental harm
• Less likely to attend school
• Poor labour market outcomes
• Ongoing intergenerational poverty.

PhD Research project

I am a PhD student at Charles Darwin University, researching child labour and its impact on children’s basic education in the Philippines. In 2023, I plan to travel to the Philippines to speak with working children and their families about the hardships they face, particularly in getting to school. I am interested to know what is it they want to do? What are their aspirations? What are their strengths, their skills? What gets in the way?

A little bit about me

This journey began in the Young Christian Worker (YCW) movement in Ireland in my early 20s, organising low-paid factory workers and unemployed youth in Dublin. During my time with the YCW, I was formed in the See-Judge-Act method and spirituality, and I represented the Irish YCW at the International Council in 1991 in Adelaide. I later emigrated to Australia in 1993. Volunteering with the St Vincent de Paul Society, I saw first-hand the poverty in Adelaide’s western suburbs where I lived. This experience led to a career in Social Work.

In October 2017, I was lucky enough to accompany Sean Gehrig from Parramatta YCW to a YCW Asia-Pacific meeting in Manila. There, I was struck by the commitment of the Philippines YCW to working class youth, their radicalism, and their grasp of the See-Judge-Act method. We visited young factory workers who lived in the outskirts of Manila and listened to their stories.

How can you get involved?

I am looking to collaborate widely on this project – including with the YCW and the Cardijn Institute – to share information, experiences, and ideas. Let’s talk!

Contact Martin Delaney
Mob. +61468 914 493
Email: martin.delaney@cdu.edu.au

PHOTO

ILO Asia-Pacific / Flickr / CC BY NC ND

Extreme poverty, the lack of employment that can support a family and desperation are the major drivers of exploitative child labour, Pope Francis told an international conference on the theme “Eradicating Child Labour, Building a Better Future.”

“If we want to stamp out the scourge of child labour, we must work together to eradicate poverty (and) to correct the distortions in the current economic system, which concentrates wealth in the hands of a few,” he said.

“We must encourage nations and the stakeholders of the world of business to create opportunities for decent employment with fair wages that let families meet their needs without their children being forced to work,” he said Nov. 19 during a meeting with people taking part in an international conference on

“We must combine our efforts to promote quality education that is free for everyone in every country, as well as a health care system that is equally accessible to everyone,” he added.

The Vatican COVID-19 Commission of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development supported the conference, which was organised in collaboration with the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The U.N. General Assembly declared 2021 the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour; eliminating exploitative child labour also is one of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

“Progress toward the elimination of child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years with a reversal of the downward trend and numbers reaching 160 million children suffering worldwide of this situation,” which has worsened during the pandemic, the dicastery said on its website, using estimates provided by UNICEF and the International Labor Organisation.

The problem of child labour has nothing to do with age-appropriate chores and work that helps the family or their community and is carried out in their free time, the pope said.

Child labour is exploiting a child within a system of production in today’s globalised economy for the earnings and profits of others, he said.

“It is the denial of a child’s rights to health, education, sound development, including the possibility to play and dream,” he said. “This is tragic. A child who cannot dream, who can’t play, who cannot grow. It is robbing children of their future and, therefore, humanity itself. It is a violation of human dignity.”

The way people relate to children, including how much they respect their human dignity and fundamental rights, “expresses what kind of adults we are and want to be, and what kind of society we want to build,” the pope said.

“It is shocking and disturbing that in today’s economies, whose productive activities rely on technological innovations … the employment of children in work activities persists in every part of the world,” he said.

“Extreme poverty, lack of work and the resulting desperation in families are the factors that expose children most to labour exploitation,” he said.

Pope: To fight child labour, eliminate poverty, give adults fair wages (Southern Cross South Africa)

“Eradicating Child Labour, Building a Better Future” (Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Vatican)

PHOTO

Pxfuel

Category: Child labour

Child labour’s impact on education

Fair wages needed to fight child labour: Pope