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Domestic law as a tool against child labour

Appendix 5 considers children’s employment legislation at the national level through the examples of two countries: India and the UK.

Most countries specify a minimum age for employment and some grant special protection to workers under 18. However, laws and regulations at the national level are often confusing and are also routinely flouted.

Minimum age for employment

In 131 countries, the minimum age for full-time employment set by governments usually reflects their ratification of ILO Convention No. 138 concerning the Minimum Age for Admission into Employment as follows:

• 42 countries – 14 years
• 59 countries – 15 years
• 30 countries – 16 years

However, international and domestic legislation are not always synchronised and the reality on the ground may be very different. In some countries, there is also a disparity between the minimum age for leaving school and the minimum age for entering full-time employment.

India

The case of India, a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child but not to the key ILO Conventions on ‘Minimum Age’ and the ‘Worst Forms of Child Labour’, illustrates some of the loopholes present in domestic legislation and casts doubt on the capacity of national laws to protect India’s 11 million working children.

UK

The case of the UK reveals an industrialised country that is subject to a confusing patchwork of regional directives, national laws and local bylaws on child employment, with the resulting effect that both children and their employers are often ill-informed of the regulations affecting them.