>Much of this happens in agricultural settings, where any work done by children under 12 is counted as child labor, even if it is light and non-hazardous.
>Imagine an 11-year-old helping on a family farm in sub-Saharan Africa. He feeds the animals every day, a couple of hours in the morning and again in the afternoon.
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>As I mentioned above, the reason this type of work counts as child labor under the international conventions is that it’s considered to be harmful because of what it displaces: the children’s time for studying, resting, playing, and socializing.
This seems overly broad. I don't think it's unreasonable to have younger children doing chores, and the definition they've adopted includes children doing anything economically productive for even an one hour a week. Yes, a couple hours twice a day is too much, but I don't think having your kid feed the animals for 45 minutes before school is going to stunt his or her development.
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[ 0.31 ms ] story [ 12.1 ms ] threadOnly if we are united in using it.
>Imagine an 11-year-old helping on a family farm in sub-Saharan Africa. He feeds the animals every day, a couple of hours in the morning and again in the afternoon.
...
>As I mentioned above, the reason this type of work counts as child labor under the international conventions is that it’s considered to be harmful because of what it displaces: the children’s time for studying, resting, playing, and socializing.
This seems overly broad. I don't think it's unreasonable to have younger children doing chores, and the definition they've adopted includes children doing anything economically productive for even an one hour a week. Yes, a couple hours twice a day is too much, but I don't think having your kid feed the animals for 45 minutes before school is going to stunt his or her development.