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In recent years Anti-Slavery has continued to draw this UN Working
Group's attention to the slavery-like situation faced by millions
of children who work as child domestics and has shared with this
Working Group some of the innovative solutions pioneered by a number
of non-governmental organisations on the issue.
It is unacceptable under current international standards (International
Labour Organization Convention No.138) for any child under 14 to
be in full-time employment. The employment of live-in domestics
many miles from home, sometimes in foreign countries and under the
total control of employers whose primary interest is in the child
as a worker and not as a child, contravenes the United Nations Supplementary
Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions
and Practices Similar to Slavery, adopted in 1956. Furthermore,
the ILO recognises aspects of child domestic work as forced labour,
and has considered various aspects of the practice under its Forced
Labour Convention (No.29) of 1930, ratified by more than 150 States.
In many circumstances, including those cited below, the use of child
domestics is in contravention of Article 3 of ILO Convention No.182
on the worst forms of child labour.
Anti-Slavery would like to summarise the results of three new studies
on child domestic work which were carried out in Benin (West Africa);
Costa Rica (Central America) and in Chennai, India. In particular,
Anti-Slavery would like to focus on the many similarities in the
situation faced by child domestic workers in these studies despite
the geographical diversity of the research locations. We also draw
some conclusions and make recommendations regarding the action which
Anti-Slavery believes governments must take to eliminate the abuse
of these extremely exploited and vulnerable child workers.
The children affected
In each of the three countries where studies were undertaken large
numbers of young children are estimated to be working as domestic
servants. In Chennai, 25 per cent of the children interviewed began
their working lives before their ninth birthdays and a further 65
per cent started work between the ages of nine and 12 years old.
In Benin, there are estimated to be 150,000 child domestic workers
aged between 4 and 14, with the majority starting work at around
ten years old. Approximately 70,000 girls and young women work as
domestics in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican study found 44 per cent
of those interviewed began work at or before they were14 years old.
In all three studies at least 80 per cent of child domestic workers
were girls, due in large part to the mistaken belief by parents
that domestic work constitutes a safe and secure environment for
their daughters. The strongly gender-biased nature of domestic work
looks set to continue with the demand for girl child domestics increasing
in many cases to fill the void left by the rising trend of adult
women seeking work outside the home. In the Chennai study almost
70 per cent of child domestic workers came from scheduled castes
and in Costa Rica more than half of the child domestic workers interviewed
were migrants from neighbouring Nicaragua.
Conditions of employment
The salary of the children in all three studies was lower than the
legal minimum wage, and in some cases children received no payment
at all. Child domestic workers in Cotonou (Benin) received the equivalent
of US$3-7 per month far below the minimum wage. In Chennai, the
parents of 25 per cent of those interviewed received advances on
their childrenšs salaries, effectively tying the children to their
employers. In Costa Rica, children were paid one-third of the salary
of adult domestic workers for the same job due to their "inexperience".
Normal working hours for child domestics in all three countries
was from 6.00am to 8.00pm. Written contracts were non-existent.
The children in all three studies suffered from a high incidence
of health problems, including regular headaches, stomach aches and
breathing difficulties due to poor nutrition and lack of rest. Cuts
and burns were seen by their employers as a normal hazard of the
job and were often untreated. While some employers gave children
medicine for illness they rarely allowed them to see doctors. In
Benin, in cases where children were severely incapacitated due to
illness, employers preferred to send them home, often a journey
of several hundred miles, rather than seeking treatment for them.
In Costa Rica, it was found that employers tended to fire their
child domestics at the first sign of major illness.
In Costa Rica, the majority of children interviewed said that they
were subject to verbal abuse. Physical abuse was reported in a significant
number of cases and sexual abuse in a few cases. The results of
the studies in Benin and Chennai followed a similar pattern.
Conclusions
The exploitation of child domestic workers remains hidden from wider
society and there is both a lack of legal safeguards to protect
them and a reluctance on the part of the authorities to intervene
in an area which is regarded as private because it occurs in the
home.
The fact that the majority of child domestic workers in all three
studies were physically separated from their families, who in many
cases were in a different country, greatly increased their isolation
and vulnerability to abuse. Many Beninoise children are trafficked
across borders to work in unfamiliar countries such as Gabon and
Nicaraguan child migrants travel to Costa Rica to work as domestics.
The surveys illustrate that while all child domestics are vulnerable,
many child domestics include children who are further marginalised
either because of their caste, the fact that they are a different
nationality or because their immigration status has not been regularised.
For example, the Costa Rican study showed that Nicaraguan domestic
workers were subject to a higher incidence of ill-treatment and
verbal abuse than native Costa Rican child domestics.
Recommendations
1. Governments should ratify and implement ILO Convention 182 as
a matter of urgency and develop plans of action which include policies
designed to offer better protection to child domestic workers, creating
public awareness about the abuse of child domestics and change attitudes.
2. Helplines and outreach programmes should be established or strengthened
to ensure that children are not isolated, denied access to education
and subject to abusive and exploitative practices.
3. Governments should undertake education campaigns to ensure that
child domestic workers, their families and employers understand
their rights and entitlements under domestic and international law.
4. Governments should ratify and implement the United Nations Convention
on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Member
of their Families as a matter of urgency.
5. The Working Group On Contemporary Forms of Slavery should consider
making the issue of child domestics a focus of its 27th session
in 2002.
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