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By Dr. Amara Satharasinghe
Not all children’s work is bad. Many children work. They do household chores around the house, help in shops or farms. Such work can help children learn new skills, develop responsibility, manage their resources, and gain experience which might be helpful in their future social responsibilities. However, not all work has a positive effect on children’s lives. Some forms of child labour can damage children’s health, hinder their education and have major psychological effects.
The Department of Census and Statistics (DCS), at the request made by the Ministry of Labour and Trade Union Relations, conducted the National Child Activity Survey (CAS) in 2016. The International Labour Organization (ILO) provided financial assistance. The purpose of the survey was to assess the work status of children in Sri Lanka.
The CAS included children aged 5-17 years living in a sample of 25,000 nationally representative households. The survey collected information on children’s economic activity, social status, living conditions, type of employment, working conditions, sectors of activity, occupation, involvement in household chores, and effect of employment on education and health, etc.
Based on the ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) acceptable minimum age for light work is 12 years and 15 years for admission into regular employment. Accordingly, in estimating the global incidence of child labour, the ILO uses three age groups: 5-11, 12-14 and 15-17 years. Consequently all data in this survey are analysed with respect to these age groups.
Total child population between ages 5 to 17 years is approximately 4.6 million. Of them, 55.6% are in 5 to 11 years, 23.4% are in 12-14 years and 21.0% are in 15-17 years.
A child’s education can be adversely affected by undue engagement in labour. The current survey showed that 90% of children between 5 and 17 years were currently attending school during the survey period. Among the younger groups of 5-11 years and 12-14 years, a proportion as high as 98% were attending school. In the oldest group of 15-17 years, this proportion was much lower at 60%, mostly because children awaiting O/L results were counted as not attending school.
Children who have engaged in economic activities at least one hour during the reference period are identified as working children. According to Systems of National Accounts methodology, the production of all the services designed for own consumption within households are considered non-economic activity. It is seen that the almost all (98%) Sri Lankan children do not engage in economic activities.
The proportion of children in work is falling. Child involvement in economic activity is at very low levels in Sri Lanka. In all, an estimated 104,000 (2.3%) of 5-17 year old children were economically active in the year 2016. This percentage is very low relative to other countries at similar levels of income. A comparison of the results of Child Activity Surveys conducted in 2008/09 and 2016 shows an almost eleven percentage point fall in the proportion of children working in the period between the two survey rounds.
Percentages of working children reported in 1999, 2008/09 and 2006 were 21.0, 12.9 and 2.3% respectively. Across the residential sectors, engagement in economic activity is highest (2.5%) in the Rural Sector and lowest (0.96%) in the estate sector. About 1.7% of the children in the urban sector are involved in economic activities.
Among the small minority of children who are engaged in economic activities, nearly 81% are in the oldest age category of 15-17 years. The majority of working children (59.3%) have contributed to the family income by working as unpaid workers in family enterprises.
The survey estimated that approximately 3.4 million children do household chores. Such chores include shopping for the household, cleaning, washing clothes, collecting firewood, fetching water from outside premises, caring for children and the aged. About 88% of the children engaged in household chores do so while attending schooling and about 45% of children spent 1-2 hours per week in household chores.
Children are expected to attend school. Some children attend to economic activities and/or household chores as well. The survey estimated that there were about 6,600 children who were only in economic activities and not attending school. Little over 56,000 (1.24%) are engaged in both Economic activities and Household chores. Children attending school while engaged in economic activities but not household chores is nearly 2,200 (0.05%). Quite impressively, a group of nearly 38,000 children are engaged in economic activity, and do household chores while also attending school. All these children merit attention and deserve assistance.
Doing household chores seems common among children. An estimated 74% of 5-17 year-old children were engaged in household chores. The survey collected information on the types of economic activity in which children engage. These economic activities are classified into three broad groups: agriculture, industry and services.
Most economically-active children (37.2%) are found in the service sector. This is followed by the Agriculture sector (33.8%) and Industry sector (29.1%).
Only a very low proportion of (2.8%) economically-active children reported that they faced work-related injuries/illnesses due to their economic activities.
The factors that have helped to bring down Sri Lanka’s child labour needs further investigation. However, both school and labour market factors have likely played a role. At the lower end of the age spectrum, government efforts to raise school enrolment have likely drawn children into the classroom that otherwise would have entered work or remained idle at home. For children at other points on the age spectrum, labour market factors have likely played a stronger part.
In accordance with ILO, the term ‘child labour’ is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. The Department of Census and Statistics, in consultation with ILO and the Ministry of Labour and Trade Union Relations in Sri Lanka, defined a set of criteria, to identify ‘child labour’. The same definition has been used in the previous round of the CAS as well.
The survey findings show that only 1.0% or approximately 44,000 children aged 5-17 years are engaged in child labour. Data on child labour trends point to significant progress against child labour in recent years. The proportion of 5-17 year-old children in child labour fell from 2.5% in 2008/09 to 1.0% in 2016.
The proportion of children in child labour varies by sex, age and residence. The proportion of male children in child labour was slightly higher (1.4%) than females (0.5%). Percentage of child labour rises as age increase. Highest percentage of 3.7% was reported for 15-17 years age group. Lowest (0.1%) was reported for 5-11 years age group while it was 0.5% for 12-14 years age group.
The hazardous form of child labour is a sub set of the child labour which is a subset of working children. In terms of developing a clear understanding of child labour, it is important to distinguish between hazardous form of child labour and other forms of child labour not considered hazardous.
In 2010, the Government of Sri Lanka gazetted a list of hazardous activities. As per these regulations of the Ministry of Labour Relations and Productivity Improvement under section 31 read with section 20A of the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act, No. 47 of 1956, no person shall employ a person under 18 years of age in any occupation listed in that gazette. Accordingly, DCS together with other ILO and other stakeholders, defined criteria to identify hazardous form of child labour.
The survey estimated that about 39,000 children are engaged in hazardous form of child labour. This number represents 0.9% of the total child population of 5 to 17 years and reflects a decline from 1.5% reported in 2008/09. It is noteworthy here that 58% of child labour are in the hazardous category by reason of working more than 43 hours rather than due to the nature of work, and all of them were over 12 years of age. While the children working in hazardous labour is numerically small, for each child it is a childhood lost.
Of the children 5-17 years who are involved in economic activities, 42.2% were engaged in child labour, out of which 89.2% are involved in hazardous work. They were all older than 11 years. Of those engaged in child labour, the proportion of males engaged in hazardous forms of child labour (90.4%) was slightly higher than females (86%). Not clear
Most children (44.8%) in hazardous labour were in the industrial sector, a somewhat smaller proportion (37.1%) in the service sector and the lowest proportion (18%) in the agriculture sector. Similar variation is there across occupation categories. About 42% of child labour engaged in elementary occupations, especially building construction. Another, 23.0% were in service/sales related occupations.
The socio-economic characteristics of a household have an important role on children’s living standards, education, and employment. Any positive or negative change in these characteristics is immediately reflected on the household, and especially on children’s participation in work. CAS 2016 gathered some information on such characteristics. It was revealed that school is located within 1 km from the home for 31% of the children. Nearly 34% of children commute to school by walking.
Parents of 94% of the children are satisfied about the safety of their children after returning from school. For 93% of children, home is the usual place of stay after returning from school. About three out of five working children attend school. Over 70% of children live with both parents. About 14% of children engaged in hazardous labour do not live with a parent.
Sri Lanka has achieved significant progress towards eliminating child labour in recent years. Between 2008/09 and 2016, the proportion of 5-17 year-old children in employment has fallen from 12.9% to 2.3%. As at 2016 only an estimated 44,000 children are engaged in child labour. However, these children need attention to free them from labour and to help live their childhood as normally as possible.
Political commitment, through the adoption of coherent policies in the areas of poverty reduction, basic education, and human rights, eradication child labour etc. can be considered to have enabled the progress that have been achieved in eliminating child labour in Sri Lanka. Particularly such policies, countrywide awareness programs etc., have helped to create a new generation of more educated parents less inclined to send their children to work.
It must be noted that ‘working children’ is not the same as child labour. Even though some children were engaged in both economic and non-economic activities, not all of them can be considered to be in child labour. Poverty and low incomes are some of the underlying reasons for child labour and until parents are able to support themselves financially, children would continue to be used to help top up household incomes.
It seems that, future without child labour is within our grasp. For Sri Lanka to eradicate child labour completely, policies need to, take into consideration, the fact that of the estimated 4,571,000 children aged 5-17 years covered in the survey, an estimated 103,700 (2.3%) worked at least one hour during the seven days before the interview; 43,700 (0.1%) were involved in child labour while 39,000 (0.9%) were engaged in hazardous forms of child labour. The full report on the Child Activity Survey – 2016 is published in the DCS website: www.statistics.gov.lk.
(The writer is Director General, Department of Census and Statistics).
