Save the children of poverty

This is the time when people to return home for Spring Festival family reunions. But despite being busy preparing for that all-important annual event, we should not forget the many challenges facing children in our society.

The shocking news about several dozen children, aged between 9 and 16 years, from poor families in Liangshan, Sichuan province, having "volunteered" to work as cheap laborers has once again raised the problem of child labor.

It was heart wrenching to hear a young girl plead: "I don't want to go home, I can eat meat and rice here (in the factory). I don't want to go back to eating potatoes and corn every day." This girl's plea came after she was rescued from a factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, where she had been illegally employed as a child laborer. Further reports this weekend said another 35 teenagers questioned why they were forced back home by local police, rather than allowed to improve their lives through working.

These children's startling statements have sparked a heated public debate with many people questioning the government's decision to send the children back home in Liangshan. Some support the company for employing the children, even though it had violated labor laws, while a few go so far as to advocate the legalization of child labor.

Many of the children rescued in Liangshan - whose average age is 12 years - were separated from their families and forced to work 12 or more hours a day.

"Child labor" is generally understood as work that deprives children of their childhood, potential and dignity while endangering their physical and mental development. In ratifying three principal international conventions - the UN Convention on Rights of the Child, and the International Labor Organization's Minimum Age Convention and Worst Forms of Child Labor - China has shown that it is committed to eradicating child labor. To achieve that, it has established a framework of labor laws and regulations, fixing the minimum working age at 16.

The causes and consequences of child labor are often complex. When one considers the bleak prospects that an impoverished child in a place like Liangshan faces, we may forgive parents who allow their children to forgo mediocre education in favor of employment. But does that mean we should shut our eyes to the problem of child labor, or even go to the extreme of legalizing it?

The answer is "no". Neuroscience and child development studies have shown that a person's capacity for decision-making, logical reasoning, impulse control and emotional processing keeps developing throughout his/her childhood. This means children only have a limited window of opportunity to develop their potential to the maximum. This will not take place if they are in work. Furthermore, they are too young to give informed consent, and need to be protected from making choices that will have a negative impact on the rest of their life.

Moreover, since the State is responsible for protecting children's rights, it, along with private sector actors, civil society and citizens, should follow the UNCRC principle of "Best Interest of the Child" and "Do No Harm". Society as whole must always strive to maximize a child's best interest, while minimizing the threats it could face. This not only means that we need to protect the child from being exposed to harm, but ensure that they are able to get a decent education and eat a healthy diet. As the country puts in place the infrastructure to make this happen, the best interest of an individual child may not always be the most obvious one: we need to look at why the option of employment at such a young age was preferable to staying at home in education, and change that calculus. So realizing a child's best interest must be carefully planned and executed to protect it from being exposed to harm.

The government, therefore, should not be criticized for rescuing the Liangshan girl - and many other child laborers - from factories. But a responsible intervention must be informed by professional analysis and investigation, which should guide the provision of essential services such as emergency shelter, medical care, legal support, and family tracing and assessment for rescued children.

To eradicate child labor, the intervention should not stop at rescuing children from factories. The government, as well as companies employing child laborers, should take financial safeguard measures to guarantee the survival and development of the rescued children after they have lost their source of livelihood. For instance, companies could consider hiring a child laborer's parent, or providing a stipend or income-generating micro-finance scheme to the child laborer's family. And a follow-up and monitoring mechanism should be established to ensure that children get the opportunity to receive education and professional training to prevent them from slipping into child labor once more.

The government should also adopt a multifaceted approach to address the root causes of child labor. It should, for instance, continue to strengthen the overall social security and protection systems to better cover vulnerable groups. Besides, it should intensify economic and social development in impoverished areas such as Liangshan by investing (or giving incentives to companies to invest) in those areas, and developing a wider range of educational and vocational options for children to prevent them from falling into the trap of child labor. More importantly, the government should educate parents and children about the dangers of child labor. This is an urgent task - and it needs the support of many different actors.

As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. The government alone cannot save children from the plight of child labor. Social organizations should also play an important role in eradicating child labor.

The author is child protection and child rights governance advisor, Save the Children in China.