Millions Of Children "Slaves" Behind Closed Doors

by Gustavo Capdevila

(IPS) GENEVA -- "There are children in the world who are treated like slaves," says expert June Kane in a report for the International Labor Organization (ILO) on the situation of minors working in domestic service.

To this admonition, Kane adds a call for decisive action. The eradication of child labor requires measures to remove children from situations of exploitation, not simply improving their living conditions, she says.

Kane's study, financed by the Netherlands government, was published this week by the ILO as part of the events surrounding World Day Against Child Labor, Saturday, June 12.

The facts uncovered over the course of the investigation behind "Helping Hands or Shackled Lives? -- Understanding Child Domestic Labor and Responses to It," were quite oppressive, she told a Geneva press conference.

It is common to find children as young as six or seven working in other people's homes, "who have to get up before anyone else in the household to light a fire, to make sure that the house is ready for them."

These young children "have to cook the breakfast, they have to prepare the family's clothes. They have to start the day ahead of the family," said Kane.

"They may have to take children to school, which is one of the saddest, most tragic things, that a young child of eight or nine may have to take another child to school, but they cannot go to school themselves."

Their work continues back at home, where "they may have to look after the baby, they may have to look after the grandmother and grandfather, move them from one place to another, help them get into bed." And if the family runs a business, the child laborers may also have to work there.

The child domestics might have to take their employer's children to the park to play. Kane's report cites one little girl who says that she has to watch after them and she is not allowed to play herself.

"And what do they get in return? If they do receive any pay at all is very minimal," often they are remunerated with some clothes and food. The children have no labor insurance or health insurance.

"Sometimes they don't have a name," Kane said. The research by the ILO's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) found that in many countries the young girls working as domestics are simply called "girl" or a generic word for servant in the local language.

They often forget the name given by their parents, because nobody uses it anymore. "They lose their identity," said the expert.

The ILO recognizes that it is very difficult to obtain precise figures for the number of girls and boys working in domestic labor worldwide.

But the organization stated that "they comprise a substantial portion of the more than 200 million children working in the world today."

The ILO report lists some national estimates of the prevalence of children in domestic labor: 700,000 in Indonesia, 559,000 in Brazil, 250,000 in Haiti, 264,000 in Pakistan, 200,000 in Kenya and 100,000 in Sri Lanka.

Terre des Hommes, a Switzerland-based non-governmental organization, said that studies conducted in Brazil show that girls working in domestic service represent 22 percent of the one million children aged 10 to 14 working in that South American country.

In the Peruvian capital alone it is estimated that 150,000 girls under 18 work in domestic service.

Terre des Hommes, which focuses its efforts on children's issues, extrapolates this data to determine that "several million youngsters work as domestics; the majority in Africa, South America and Asia."

These children often do not have a decent bed to sleep in; they are subjected to sexual abuse; and falsely accused of stealing from their employers.

"If they run away in desperation, the only alternative they often find is life in the streets and prostitution," says the NGO, founded in 1959 in the Swiss city of Lausanne, and extended in 1966 to other countries to form the International Federation of Terre des Hommes.

ILO director-general Juan Somav’a summarized the problem: "Millions of children work night and day outside of their family homes, toiling as domestic child laborers."

He stressed that "nearly all are exploited, exposed to hazardous work and subject to abuse...This must stop now!"

IPEC director Frans Ršselaers underscored "the crucial need for governments to take the lead and to include the elimination of child domestic labor in national policy frameworks."

"It is vital that this form of child labor -- exploitation that takes place behind the closed doors of private homes -- receives priority attention in both policy and action to combat child labor," said the ILO official.