Committee : United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

Topic : Combatting the Issue of Children Labor and Children Rights

Childhood is a precious time for children to live free from fear, safe from violence, and protected from abuse and
exploitation to support their physical and mental development as future citizens of the nations. Hence, children are
supposed to live their childhood by attending schools, playing, and having the love and encouragement from their
family. Unfortunately, in some parts of the world, especially in developing countries, children should lose their
childhood due to high economic burden of their family which later demand them to become labour. The existence of
UN Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) has become a cornerstone for global community to uphold children’s
rights1. Inadequate pay; excessive burden and duration of work; and lack of protection and assurance faced by children
labour are the issues of children labour that global community try to deal with. As the issue of children labour still
remains, not only in developing countries but also developed countries, International Labour Organization (ILO) has
established ILO Minimum Age Convention (No.138) and ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No.182) to
protect children labor2,3. However, such law needs to be reviewed and enforced in order to maintain its strength as
legal basis and to generate positive outcomes.
Persistent poverty; lack of infrastructure; and lack of family’s engagement for daily needs are considered to be
the main causes of child labor4. United Kingdom found that children labour is more prevalent in developing countries
where agricultural sector plays important role in their economic activities rather than manufacturing. Hence, most
children are employed by their parents to work in family farm5. Nevertheless, as we live in globalization era, the
increase in number of factories in developing countries turned out to be in line with the increase in number of children
labour. However, United Kingdom does believe that children are supposed to be seen as human with rights rather than
economic assets of their parents. Other than that, aside from economic demands, we do acknowledge that strong
cultural beliefs and religion become the challenges for developing countries to eliminate children labour. Most people
in developing countries believe that work contains a constructive effect on character building and support skill
development of the children. Moreover, learning through the job from an early age and follow the parents’ footsteps
is already become family tradition in most developing countries6. Thus, making it hard for developing countries to
eliminate children labour due to rooted misconception on how children are supposed to live their childhood.
As one of developed nations, United Kingdom has been in a condition when Britain’s economic success in the
19 century happened due to successful exploitation of children labor7.1. Being aware that the issue of children labour
th

is one of children’s rights violation, United Kingdom has enacted the Factory Act in 1833 as legal basis to prohibit
factories to employ children less than the age of 9 and in the same year, slavery was officially abolished in British
Empire. Under the Factory Act, the factories were obliged to provide at least two hours of education daily for children
under the age of 137.2. The Education Act in 1870 has brought significant changes to ensure the rights of children to
get appropriate education and it was strengthened by the establishment of the National Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in 1889 as one of the bodies that responsible in ensuring children’s rights7.3. Thus,
starting by the late 19th century, children’s lives in United Kingdom were transformed into better in which children
are treated as children rather than “little adults”. Moreover, United Kingdom has enacted the Children and Young
Person Act in 1933 as the main legal basis to restrict the use of children in workplaces and we also have ratified CRC
in 19928. Furthermore, in 2015, UK Modern Slavery Act was enacted as part of the efforts to anticipate the issue of
children labour in modern era9. Such history shows United Kingdom’s serious commitment to end the issue of children
labour and ensure children’s rights Thus, United Kingdom would not let developing nations alone strive for this issue
and willing to collaborate more with global community to enhance the existing efforts.

United Kingdom does recognize the importance of addressing the root causes and challenges faced by developing
countries in coping with the issue of children labour. Hence, United Kingdom does come with several propositions as
listed below to enhance global efforts in tackling the issue of children labour and ensuring children’s rights:
1. Establish LEARN (awareness and knowledge; welfare; and policies and regulations) Framework
 a) Promoting awareness and knowledge about the rights of children and its related issues including children
labour issue. This can be done through :
1) Organizing Regular Children’s Rights Campaign (Double-RC) in both urban area by utilizing information
and communication technology (ICT)-based platforms such as including but not limited to social media
campaign and suburban and rural areas by involving grassroots-based civil society. This aimed to create
basic understanding about children’s rights along with ways to protect it.
2) Conducting seminars to create deeper understanding about children’s rights including the issue of children
labour and comprehensive discussions as platform for those who are in ‘favour’ and ‘against’-children
labour involving parents, children, and the other actors such as representation of faith-based organization
and community representation to straighten rooted cultural or traditional values that supports children to
become labour.
3) Optimizing the role of educational institutions as formal institution that responsible in creating better
quality of the next generation. Educational institutions are expected to be able to bridge the relationship
between children and their families with the help of qualified counselling teachers in maintaining the
development of children.
b) Improving the welfare of children and their families in developing countries. This can be done through :
1) Enhancing physical and social infrastructure to improve their accessibility, availability, and quality. Such
efforts can be in form of expanding public educational systems, developing healthcare services, and so
forth.
2) Empowering society especially adults including parents through community programs such as skills
training, business start-up equipment, and saving and interest-free loan programs. Such actions are
expected to be intensively done in extreme poverty area.
3) Encouraging companies in developing countries to implement their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
to increase the efforts in enhancing infrastructure and empowering society.
c) Strengthening policies and regulations concerning children labour in developing countries. This can be
done through :
1) Improving children information systems through combination of proxy-based and children-based report
to obtain objective data regarding children labour and their rights’ fulfilment. The objective data are
used to create appropriate policies concerning such issues.
2) Conducting Conference of Parties (COP) as a platform to do check and balance on the implementation
of existing law concerning children labour and children’s rights. If the existing law is not strong enough
after passing several COP, United Kingdom recommends to create additional protocol of the existing
law that specifically addressing the issue of children labour and children’s rights in developing
countries.
3) Implementing proportional justice systems for parties such as including but not limited to companies
who violate the applicable law and jurisdiction concerning child labour and children’s rights.
2. Encourage states to gradually implement LEARN Framework in collaboration with UNHRC and the
other relevant supporting actors
a) In International Level: states can collaborate with UN bodies such as UNHRC, Office of the High
Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations of
Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations of Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); children labour-related international
organizations such as Stop Child Labour Coalition, International Initiative to End Child Labour (IIECL), the
Global March Against Child Labour, Good Weave, and international organizations concerning children’s
rights such as The Committee on the Rights of the Child, Love 146, and so forth.
b) In National, Regional, and Local Level: states can involve the existing NGOs such as NSPCC and Save
Children; and civil society organizations within their region. United Kingdom does encourage the national
government to establish specialized committee on children labour within Ministry of Labour, Family, and
Social Affair and encourage the family especially parents to actively involve in the action plan concerning
children’s rights.
3. Urging UNHRC to monitor the progress of children’s rights enforcement by UN member states especially
developing countries through specific Universal Periodic Review mechanism.
1
UN General Assembly, 1989, UN Convention on the Rights of Child, [Online] Available from:
[Link] [Accessed: 9 July 2019]
2
International Labour Organization (ILO), 1973, Minimum Age Convention (No.138), [Online] Available from:
[Link] [Accessed: 9 July 2019]
3
International Labor Organization (ILO), 1999, Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention (No.182), [Online] Available from:
[Link] [Accessed: 9 July 2019]
4
Srivastava, K., 2011, Child Labor Issues and Challenges, Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 20 (1): 1-3.
5
Dammert, A.C., Hoop, J.D., Mvukiyehe,E., & Rosati, F.C., 2017, Effects of Public Policy on Child Labour, Policy Research Working
Paper, World Bank Group, 1-39.
6
Radfar, A., Asgharzadeh,A.A., Quesada, F., & Filip, I., 2018, Challenges and Perspectives of Child Labor, Industrial Psychiatry Journal,
27 (1): 17-20.
7.1,7.2,7.3
The National Archives, Child Labor, and [Online] Available from:
[Link] [Accessed: 13 July 2019]
8
Clare Feikert, 2007, UK England and Wales: Children’s Rights, the Law Library Congress, 166-180.
9
Global Slavery Index, 2018, Country Studies: United Kingdom, [Online] Available from:
[Link] [Accessed: 13 July 2019]