Child Labour in Thailand

Child Labour in Thailand

Not all as it seems- The beauty of Thailand

Child labour refers to the employment of children (underage) in any work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful. It goes against the human rights that every child has a right to be protected from being hurt badly in any way. Child labour usually takes place in third world developing countries due to their lack poor economy which leads to lack of education resulting to children’s futures looking very bleak; children without money to pay for an education need to support their families financially and therefore look for any work possible. Businessmen and women take advantage of this and pay the children minimum wages and give them overworked hours. Jobs that children may take part as such as mining, factory work, sexual and commercial exploitation.  However sometimes it is cultural believe that child labour is a positive thing. Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children. In many cultures the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents' footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age. In other people believe the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling, and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services.

Thailand is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia; it is the 51^st largest country in the world in area, slightly smaller than Yemen yet slightly larger than Spain. Thailand enjoys a high level of literacy, and education is provided by a well-organized school system. The private sector of education is well developed and significantly contributes to the overall provision of education which the government would not be able to meet through the public establishments. Education is compulsory up to and including age group 14 and the government provides free education through to age group 17. This is excellent as it follows the human right that every child has the right to an education. However despite all this teachers are not properly trained and at time do not know what to teach the children and have lack of facilities to give to the students. For these reasons parents often ponder as to whether it is worth sending their children there when they could be earning money. Its economy is shaping up having recovered from an economic crisis in 1999 yet despite all this there is still poverty leading to child labour.

Children being deprived of their rights and hard at work

It has been estimated that a staggering 4 million children are in the child labour industry in Thailand! The types of work these children are being forced to endure are such as agriculture and the shrimp and seafood processing industries. Children in agriculture help to produce sugarcane. Children reportedly work in the production of cassava, corn and rice and in harvesting seeds. These children are often exposed to long working hours, the use of dangerous tools and pesticides. Children (often boys) work in fishing and are often a subject of abuse and harsh working conditions being forced to carry heavy loads and work with hazarder’s equipment and yet they are paid a ridicules minimum wage. There are also children who have to work at entertainment venues, restaurants and venues may sound better but they are exposed to excessive working hours, night working hours and high levels of noise, dust and smoke- not the type of issues a young child should have to experience. Children, primarily girls, work in domestic service, which may result in excessive work hours, physical and sexual abuse from their employers and the inability to leave their employer’s home. A lot of children are sexually exploited and are normally trafficked from different countries such as Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos and Vietnam to Thailand just to be used sexually. It is one of the rights that a child should not be illegally taken away from their country, yet children are being taken away to be abused which is committing a crime according to the child right children should be protected from sexual abuse.

So what are the government doing about it? There is a campaign that is aiming to achieve a country where worst forms of child labour do not exist; this is known as the National Policy Plan. It is designed to protect not just Thailand’s children but non Thailand children who have been trafficked from foreign countries.  However, the NPP lacks operational targets and indicators as well as specific budget allocations and goals; the government have not taken a big part in this organisation and have merely approved it. How can a country be child labour free if the campaigns are not getting full support of the government? The organisations need funds to carry out their work and a certain guideline to help them with what they need to do, which is something this organisation lacks. Campaigns do not have a lot of authority, they may fight for what they believe, get demonstrations and people to support their point but they do not have any power among citizens or the people that control child labour. So in that case the government needs to step up and get more involved in the situation and influence their authority to prevent the labour children are enduring.

Campaigns to STOP child labour 

However, the Government created Central and Provincial Operation Centres for Providing Assistance to Women and Child Labourers. The centres coordinate efforts among relevant agencies to combat the worst forms of child labour. They also collect and disseminate information on the worst forms of child labour and report their activities to the National Committee. Alongside all of this the government contributed $100,000 to the centres. This is an amazing organisation done by the government who should be extremely proud of their work. Women and children can socialise with those who have been through similar ordeals, they get the opportunity to speak to specialists who can help them come to terms with what they’ve been through. This also helps raise the governments’ awareness about child labour and what action they can take to fight it. However to find out information the people at the centre have to bring up the topic of what these people have been through which is the worst type of child labour which can be distressing and mental harmful, especially to young people.

In 2010, the Government began participating in a $9 million, USDOL-funded project to eliminate child labour in the shrimp and seafood processing industry. The project aims to strengthen policy frameworks to protect the rights of Thailand and migrant children; work with the shrimp and seafood processing industry to better comply with labour laws; and provide education and other services to children and families in the targeted areas who are engaging or may be at risk of engaging in exploitative labour. Over the life of the project, over 7,000 children were removed or were prevented from entering into the worst forms of child labour through the provision of educational services. This is an excellent step forward to deal with child labour as it helps children receive the education they are entitled to and open up many opportunities to the future generations of Thailand; it will also help the countries economy as more children being able to read and write will lead to more developed jobs in the future increasing the GPD. The government have also spent a lot of money on this project meaning they are serious about sorting out the issues in Thailand, which is quite a risk seeing as they are still developing.

Overall I feel the government are taking risks to improve the situation in Thailand and are giving children to live a better and enjoy their rights. There are a few errors but a fantastic job is being done.