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Background
to the Research
- One of the most
enduring problems with the UNCRC concerns achieving a complementary
balance between protecting children and promoting their interests.
However, advancing the commonly referred to 'three Ps' - protecting,
participation and promoting children's rights, has been difficult
to achieve in practice and concern for protecting children often transcends
the goal of promoting their interests. This article examines this
issue in relation to children's attitudes to their right to gain term-time
employment.
Research
Approach
- The article presents
an overview of National legislation relating to the employment of
children and the UNCRC. A particular problem identified is that legislation
is over-concerned with protection and does not go far enough in the
direction of empowerment rights. The author considers this further
before presenting the relevant research findings.
- The data used
in this article were drawn from a wider study into the paid employment
experiences of 545 15 year-old children from 12 schools in Belfast,
NI. The survey was supplemented by focus group interviews with 56
boys and 38 girls and interviews with 15 employed children. The types
of employment undertaken are presented in greater detail elsewhere.
At the end of the survey, children were invited to present their own
thoughts on the issue of child employment: 245 children took the opportunity
to provide their views on this overall topic.
Main Findings
- The dominant
theme to emerge was children's perception that they had the right
to engage in paid employment while at school. This also emerged strongly
during the focus groups and interviews. The remainder of the article
focused on this aspect of the data and its implications for the existing
legislation on child employment in NI.
- Just over half
(58%) felt that parents should have a voice in whether they obtained
employment. These children indicated that they respected their parents'
views and trusted their judgement. They suggested that the decision
to engage in paid employment should be reached in partnership with
parents.
- Just under one-third
(32%) felt that they should be able to make up their own minds about
whether or not to seek employment. Having a term-time job was considered
as the first step towards achieving adult status and moving away from
parental control and interference.
- Children adopted
different strategies for dealing with situations where they envisaged
lack of parental support for their paid employment, including arguing
and telling lies. Children were found to be active actors in negotiating
parental consent to engage in the labour market. The cases described
demonstrate how children accord parents with the right to protect
their interests but within this broad acceptance actively bargain
with their parents in reaching agreement over decisions relating to
their participation in the labour market.
- The theme of
the right to work was consistent across 98% of replies for the section
concerning children's own views on child employment.
- The first group
of 95 children (39%) argued for the right to work and outlined a number
of positive attributes associated with working. These included learning
responsibility, preparation for later roles in adult life, promotion
of independence, and enhanced opportunities. Many also emphasised
that it should not interfere with education, with the most commonly
expressed attitude being that education should take precedence over
work and not the other way around.
- Children felt
they should be trusted to make reasoned judgements about the number
of hours they should work and that this may differ from child to child.
They also wanted some input into deciding which types of employment
were 'good' or 'bad' for them.
- Some children
criticized the tendency to use universal indicators of childhood,
suggesting that children differed in their maturity and ability to
combine schoolwork with paid employment.
- The second group
of 100 children (41%) also advocated the right to work, but placed
more emphasis on employment rights. The most common response was to
argue for a minimum wage for child workers or to suggest that children
under 16 should be paid the same as older co-workers if they were
doing the same job. Wanting to be treated equally and with respect
also characterised the majority of responses.
- Children outlined
the absence of such rights as the right to holidays and sick pay from
their employment experiences and suggested the need for a recognized
complaints procedure and unions to help promote young workers' rights.
Some children emphasized the need for the right to proper information
about their rights in employment.
- The remaining
group of 44 children (18%) felt that there should be more opportunities
for jobs for those under 16. Working without a National Insurance
number enhances the informal nature of children's employment and encourages
less favourable working conditions.
Conclusions
- The children's
responses present an image of children far removed from irrational,
immature individuals needing protection from the adult world of work.
As previously found, work is a majority rather than a minority experience
for children throughout the UK.
- Contrary to
the apparent basis of existing legislation, more and more children
are entering the labour market because they want to work. The author
argues that, to fully protect children, it is necessary to start from
the premise that employment is now an everyday feature of many children's
lives, and it is necessary to both protect them and promote their
interests. This necessitates consulting with working children. Indeed,
the children in this study, as has been found among working children
in developing countries, held the conviction that the best way to
promote their interests and ensure their protection was by enhancing
their rights in employment.
- Ignoring children's
own experiences of and attitudes to work may result in the promotion
of misguided policies that ironically end up harming the very children
they were intended to protect, as in the case of the banning of children
from the Bangladesh garment industry in 1993.
- The author concludes
that existing UK child employment laws are seriously outmoded and
need to be reappraised in the light of the wider aims of the Convention,
which adds participation and promotion to traditional approaches which
focus on protection. While arguing for the importance of children's
own perspectives, she also notes that taking children's views into
account is only one of the factors that may influence a policy on
child employment - a more valid approach to determining appropriate
work for children is to take into account the views of the state,
parents and children.
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