Child Labor as a Global Issue

This report describes about children within the age group of 5 until 17 year old on that used as a cotton picker and collectors on cotton farm and plantation. One of the country that used child labor is Uzbekistan, which is the fifth largest cotton producer in the world. Surprisingly, there are several big company that used child labor indirectly. One of the case was found in the H&M, which is a famous clothing brand from Sweden. Therefore, the aim of this final report is to explore deeper analysis of child labor on cotton farm with H&M as a company case.

Secondary sources such as International Labor Organization’s website and online articles were used to gather data information. Firstly, International Labor Organization have already made a prohibition policy about using child as a labor or worker. Policy that was made by International Labor Organization about eliminating the misuse of child labor in South Asia, The policy for ASEAN countries about the usage of woman and child labor, Beijing declaration for woman and child rights in Pacific Asia, and made United Nations Development Assistance Framework for Pacific Asia. policy that have been made by International Labor Organization is aimed to prevent and decrease the negative impact of the child labor abuse.

The conclusion shows that Child labor is forcing an under aged child to do hard leveled work like adults. Child labor is considered illegal by law all over the world because it hampers the emotional, physical, and moral development of the child. Therefore, child labor is a serious human right violations issue.

CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION

This chapter would like to explain about the background and the introduction of the issue which is Child Labor. This report will describe deeper about child labour issue around the world and explain the law and describe the issue itself from different perspective, from ethics, health and economics.

1.1. Child Labor As a Global Issue

In past few years, child labor issue becomes the spotlight around the world, for example in Asia and the Pacific the number of child labor increased from 2012 to 2016, the number of children worked in the age of 5 to 17 are 6.2 million or 7.4 percent based on Bureau of International Labor Affairs.

“Based on ILO’s International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) research has been found that child labor often work in the economic sector included in domestic labor, seafood processing, garment and footwear factories.” (ILO, 2016). This phenomenon not only happened in a small company but also a big company. And also not only small country who have child labor but also big country around the world.

1.2. Child Labor On Cotton Farm

Uzbekistan is 5th world largest cotton exporter. The Uzbekistan government had mobilized children aged of 17 and above to picked cotton but, they got protested by the against child labor group such as Cotton Campaign and Responsible Sourcing Network in cooperation with garment company in western countries. Worried that the cottons got blocked, the government forced the parents of any profession to replacing. Refusing, that means being caught or fired from their job. In harvest time, the managers and the principals dividing the pickers into two groups. If they aren’t working in the plantation, they work as usual in two shift. In this system, the boss in the office is the boss in the cotton plantation. Their ability