Do children have a right to work? Working children’s movements in the struggle for social justice

Policy on Children's Work and Labour

“…Where work is found to be harmful or exploitative, the first response should be to remove the specific harm while minimising disruption to children's lives. We need to develop a concept of decent and dignified work for children, as working children's organisations have repeatedly requested (Liebel, ). Where work cannot be made safe, children can be helped to find alternative work that is appropriate.…”

Child labour, working children and children’s rights

“…Yet another perspective calls to regulate the conditions under which children have to work, a view which has been most outspokenly defended by organisations of working children. These movements, which include the aforementioned organization The Concerned for Working Children in India, have emerged during the 1990s in Latin-America, Africa and Asia, and have voiced concern about the protectionist, paternalistic character of the anti-child labour positions, claiming in contrast that their right to work in dignity should be recognised (Liebel, 2013). Based on a discussion by White (1994) of the shifting ways of thinking about the problem of youth and child labour, we suggest that a distinction between four different stances in reaction to child labour can help clarify understanding the debates.…”

“…In this way working children claim the right to participate in discussions on child labour policies and programmes. These organizations, which can be conceptualised as grass-root social movements (Liebel, 2013;Bourdillon et al, 2010), have made the child's right to work in dignity a central claim. Notwithstanding the relative absence of working children's perspectives from the international agenda, their organizations did take part in the debate, at times even very intensively, as illustrated by their participation in high level meetings leading up to the ILO Convention on the Worst forms of Child Labour.…”

Separate Childhood Laws and the Future of Society

“…Organizations of working children which have emerged during the 1990s in Latin America, Africa and Asia have voiced concern about the protectionist, paternalistic character of the current abolitionist legislative framework, claiming in contrast that their right to work in dignity should be recognized. 32 Child labor legislation indeed differs drastically from how labor law functions in case of exploitative work performed by adults, where law is mobilized not to prohibit but to regulate their labor. International labor standards aim at strengthening the position of workers by providing them particular rights, such as the right to decent conditions at work, fair wages, non-discrimination or to freedom of association.…”