Knowra Child labour Child labour Child labour is work that deprives children of childhood, education, or healthy development, or harms their health or safety. Its definition excludes many forms of safe, age-appropriate work.
International Labour Organization Convention No. 138 : A 1973 treaty requiring states to set minimum ages for employment and pursue the abolition of child labour. It establishes the general minimum-age framework used to regulate children’s employment.
Child development : The physical, cognitive, emotional, and social changes that occur as a person grows from childhood. Work can affect development when its demands displace rest, play, schooling, or safe relationships.
Industrial Revolution : The period of major economic and technological transformation that began in Britain in the late eighteenth century. Factory expansion made children’s employment more visible and intensified campaigns for regulation.
Child work : Work performed by children, including age-appropriate tasks that do not harm health, development, or education. This broader term separates acceptable work from activities that meet child-labour criteria.
International Labour Organization Convention No. 182 : A 1999 treaty requiring urgent action to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. It identifies especially dangerous and exploitative work for immediate prohibition.
Occupational injury : Physical or psychological harm caused by exposure to hazards in the course of work. Children may face injury from machinery, chemicals, heavy loads, or unsafe working conditions.
Factory Acts : British laws beginning in the nineteenth century that regulated work in factories, including the employment of children. They mark early statutory limits on children’s hours and workplace conditions.
Worst forms of child labour : The forms defined by ILO Convention No. 182, including slavery, sexual exploitation, illicit activities, and hazardous work. This category identifies severe exploitation distinguished from other prohibited child labour.
Hazardous work : Work likely to harm a person’s health, safety, or morals because of its nature or conditions. For children, hazardous work is among the forms targeted for urgent elimination.
School dropout : Leaving formal education before completing the expected level of schooling. Long hours, fatigue, and work-related absence can interrupt schooling and lead children to leave.
Show all 21