3.1. Figures about the Extent of Child Labor
Estimating the global prevalence of child labor is a difficult task, one reason being the variety of definitions of child labor discussed in section 2. A broader definition of child labor according to the suggestions mentioned in the previous sections will logically re-sult in much higher figures than those reported by international organizations such as the ILO, whose definition is quite narrow. National statistics on child labor are not very reliable sources of information because of the reluctance of the respective governments to admit the discrepancy between official policy and actual practice, which could attract unwanted international attractions (cf. Lansky, 1997). Furthermore, exact data regarding the extent of children working in the informal sector are hard to collect due to the fre-quently illegal nature of these activities.
According to existing „official“ data reported by the ILO, child labor is predominantly a problem of developing countries. Recent surveys carried out by the ILOs Bureau of Statistics (1996a) estimate that in the developing countries alone there are at least 120 million children aged between 5 and 15 working full-time and more than twice as many (or approximately 250 million) if those whose work is a secondary activity are included.
Moreover, the data reveal that 61 per cent of working children are found in Asia, 32 per cent in Africa and 7 per cent in Latin America. Although Asia has the largest number of child workers, Africa shows the highest incidence of 40 per cent of children between 5 and 14 years old. India is the country with the largest absolute number of child workers.
In order to get a more detailed picture of the magnitude of child labor in the various developing countries, the percentage of children of the relevant age group working as workers, the so called participation rate, has to be examined. Figures relying on statis-tics estimating the participation rates for children between 10-14 years and projected up to the year 2000 show that the participation rate is 11 % worldwide with Africa featur-ing the highest participation rate with a figure of 25 % followed by Asia (10 %.) and Latin America (8 %.) (cf. ILO 1996b). With regard to these figures, Grootaert and Kan-bur (1995) argue that the participation rate for children might be immensely underesti-mated as certain types of work are excluded from the ILO estimates, such as domestic work or other household activities. Applying a more extensive definition of child labor, the participation rate might be more than 40 % in certain developing countries such as the Phillipines and India. In this context, Weiner (1996) points out that in India there is a huge difference between the number of children which are „officially“ considered child workers and the „inofficial“ number of working children which also includes mi-nors engaged in work not considered child labor according to the ILO definition. He estimates that the number of child workers more than doubles from the official 44 mil-lion up to 90 milmil-lion working children when children performing domestic tasks not covered by the ILO definition taken into account.
Figure 1: Participation rates for children, 10-14 years. Projection for 2000 Source: ILO 1996b
3.2. Sectors in which Children are Employed
In the more developed countries the majority of working children carry out activities in agriculture, in family or non-family undertakings during the school holidays and outside school hours. The children not engaged in agriculture are employed in the urban sales or distribution sector (delivering papers, milk, etc. ), in hotels and restaurants and in light and occasional jobs especially in holiday resorts and during the school holiday (cf.
Mendelievich, 1979).
Contrary to child work in developed countries, the issue in the developing countries is often characterized by three disturbing aspects. First, a significant number of children is involved in working activities at a very early age. Second, many of them are exposed to highly exploitative employment relations and/or to hazardous working conditions.
Third, a large number of employed children work for excessively long hours without being provided with adequate nutrition, health care and eductation. (cf. Bequele and Boyden, 1988).
Latin America & Carri-bean: 8.21 %
Africa: 24.92 %
Asia: 10.18%
The work performed by children in the developing countries is manifold and covers various sectors. According to the ILO (1996c), the vast majority of child workers in the developing countries are unpaid family workers employed in small production units of the urban informal sector often not registered as such and in the rural traditional sector.
In the agricultural sector of developing countries children usually begin their economic activity at an age of 5 or 7 years where they work with their parents either on the family plot or for a third party as part of a work team performing tasks such as looking after animals, sowing, reaping, spreading fertilizer and ploughing (cf. Mendelievich, 1979).
The mostly informal industrial sectors of developing countries in which children are employed range from ceramic and glass factories where minors carry molten loads of glass to firework industry in Southern India where children produce matches in small scale village factories. Children can be found in carpet making and subcontracted gar-ment work in Pakistan and India and in mines in Africa, Asia and Latin America where they are often exposed to poor and hazardous working conditions (cf. ILO, 1996a).
Within the service sector children in developing countries are often engaged in activities which can be assigned to the so called urban informal service sector where they perform activities such as cleaning shoes, guarding parked cars, collecting junk, selling food and magazines and so forth (cf. Mendelievich, 1979). A service activity carried out mostly by girls and whose extent is hard to measure due to its hidden nature is domestic service which is a widespread practice in many developing countries. Studies referring to this type of child labor estimate that 22 % of working children in Brazil and over 5 million minors in Indonesia are employed in services of which domestic service is the main occupation whereby the majority of child domestic workers tend to be between 12 and 17 years (cf. ILO, 1996a). The most hideous kind of activity assigned to the children in the informal service sectors is commercial sexual exploitation. According to the ILO (1996a) about one million children in Asia are estimated to be victims of abduction or-ganized by international networks selling children to brothels across national borders.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children, however, is not limited to Asia. Indeed, there is evidence of increasing child prostitution in Latin America and numerous
Afri-can countries caused among other determinants by international sex tourism (cf. ILO, 1996a) .
Concerning the employment relations, child work often appears as bonded child labor which occurs most frequently in acgriculture where children are employed by landlords to help pay off a loan or other obligation incurred by their family (cf. Tucker, 1997).
This type of child labor has long been reported from West Africa, South East Asia and South Asia and, above all, India where it is, although illegal, widespread in various forms as well in domestic and export industries such as silk, beedi (hand-rolled ciga-rettes), silver jewelry, synthetic gemstones, leather products, handwoven wool carpets and in informal service sectors such as prostitution, hotel, truck stop and tea shop ser-vices and domestic servitude. (cf. Tucker 1997).