Analyzing child labor as a human rights issue: Its causes, aggravating policies, and alternative proposals

The international community has been concerned about child labor for a long time and attempted to curb it at the first session of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1919 by establishing fourteen years as the minimum age for children to be employed in industry. In 1973, the Minimum Age Convention of the ILO (Convention 138, or C138) defined child labor as economic activity performed by a person under the age of fifteen, and prohibited it for being hazardous to the physical, mental, and moral well-being of the child as well as for preventing effective schooling. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1989, also included several articles against economic exploitation and abuse of children. This paper addresses the child labor issue as a human rights violation and examines the root causes of the problem. In addition to the immediate violators of the rights of children, the paper identifies parties that encourage the use of child labor by violating other human rights. It treats child labor as an issue which demonstrates the interdependency of human rights and argues that its elimination demands a multidimensional approach.