The IREWOC researchers presented their findings from the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Latin America Project to concerned NGO and governmental parties during a meeting in The Hague.

The presented findings can be found in individual country reports and in a Summary Report.

The Seminar on child labour, education and youth employment organised by UCW took place in Paris on 13 and 14 December 2007. Director of IREWOC, Professor Kristoffel Lieten, was one of the speakers at the seminar. All the papers are available for download here>>>
 

Café-Restaurant Schlemmer, The Hague, November 29th 2007

The IREWOC researchers presented their findings from the Deprived Children and Education Project to concerned NGO and governmental parties at a workshop in The Hague. The report of these proceedings can be read here>>>(in Dutch)

The presented findings can also be found in individual country reports and in a Summary Report. These publications can be downloaded here>>>

A global history of child labour and its implications for current policy

Friday 17th November 2006

Child labour continues to be a global issue, and infringes on the rights of tens of thousands of children. In most developing countries the phenomenon is quite evident, but in developed countries, although perhaps more obscured, the problem is far from solved. Child labour has occurred in all countries of the world at one time, and because abolition was successful in some areas, it begs to question if we cannot learn a lesson from history.
On Friday November 17^th, in honour of the Universal Children’s Day on the 20^th of November, the International Institute for Social History (IISG) organised, together with the Foundation for International Research on Working Children (IREWOC), a public meeting about the history of child labour and its implications for current policy. The meeting was the conclusion to a three-day conference about child labour from a historic and global perspective (see below).
The meeting involved a discussion about how the problem of child labour was dealt with in developed countries in the past, what the current situation is, and the successes of interventions. Representatives from Dutch NGOs, International Organisations (such as the ILO) and the scientific community, who also presented at the conference, addressed the public on their policies and research findings.

We live in an age when child labour is almost extinct in some parts of the world, and an enduring phenomenon in others. Depending on the definitions used, the estimated number of child labourers ranges from 180 to 250 million worldwide. Notwithstanding a gradual decline in some parts of the world, overall progress remains inadequate. The eradication of child labour seems to be an insurmountable problem. In trying to solve this problem, a thorough historical analysis of child labour might be useful. The best way to achieve this is by determining long term developments, not in isolation, but all over the world.  The rise and decline of child labour are subject to an interaction of (globalizing) economic systems, levels of technology, legislation, cultural norms, discourse and agency. However, the precise relationship and dynamics between these different factors, and between the different parts of the world, still remain obscure.T

This Conference aimed to trace and discuss the historical development of child labour from a global perspective. Leading questions were:

• Where and why did child labour emerge as a (demand-driven or supply-drive phenomenon since 1500?

• What was its contribution to the economy and to the household?

• Which were the mechanisms and the developments that helped to solve the child labour problem in some parts of the world and failed to do so, or did so insufficiently, in others?

The Conference brought together historians from all over the world who have been working on these issues in a particular area. This provided a framework for international comparison, in order to reassess the historical development of child labour over the last 500 years. The focus was on analytical and explanatory papers on the significance and function of child labour at the macro- and micro level. Specific attention was given to the interface between colonialism (and globalization) and the reliance on child labour in the colonial period and thereafter. How did colonialism, globalization, and the international division of labour affect the occurrence and disappearance of child labour in different parts of the world?

A volume will be published in the near future comprising a selection of the papers presented at the conference.

Read a brief summary >>

Child Labour panel at the International Sociological Association Congress

23-29 July 2006, Durban, South Africa

Sociology of Childhood RC53

(visit: http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/congress2006)