What is Child Labour

Child labor is performed by a working child below the age specified by law. The word "work" means full-time commercial work to sustain themselves or supplement their family income. Child labor is a danger to a child's mental, physical, social, educational, emotional and spiritual development. Virtually every child employed in activity to feed themselves and family have been victims of "child labor".

The Industrial Revolution had ushered in the terrible practice of employing children aged 4 and 5 years in factories in the environmental conditions that were dangerous to their health and wellbeing, often turn fatal. Developed countries have reacted sharply to this historical fact by equating "child labor" with human rights violations. But poor countries are more accepting of children's work as a living necessity.

The year 1990 almost all countries in the world except USA and Somalia will be signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The strongest, most consistent language in legal terminology prohibiting illegal child labor is provided by the CRC. But it is not defining practice of child labor as a legal offense.

Employment with others and self-employment are both under the direction of 'child labor'. It has been seen that children who are street vendors, street entertainers, rag pickers, prostitutes, child pornography or models, beggers, etc. - are mostly without natural guardians and exploited by underground gangsters and racketeers. These children are mostly children of illegal immigrants. They are victims of abandonment, riots, wars or just sheer poverty and homelessness. In poor countries, some children are helping hands for their parents or are employed in factories, commercial organizations or households with parental consent. The most horrendous forms of child labor, prostitution and modeling of child pornography. Some children are even sold to len by their parents for money.