child labour

Child labour is not a description of any work a child does. It is a measured category resting on two International Labour Organization conventions: the Minimum Age Convention of 1973, which sets the age at which a person may enter employment, and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention of 1999. The ILO describes it as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that harms their physical or mental development, either because the work itself is dangerous or because it keeps them out of school, pushes them to leave early, or leaves them combining lessons with hours too long and heavy to manage.

The ILO is explicit that not all work by children counts. A child above the minimum age doing work that does not affect their health or development, and does not interfere with school, is treated as doing something positive: helping in a family business, or earning pocket money outside school hours. In the global estimates the boundary is drawn by age and hours. For children aged 5 to 11, any economic work in a week counts. For 12 to 14 year olds the line sits at 14 hours a week, and for 15 to 17 year olds at work that is hazardous or runs beyond 43 hours. Unpaid household chores sit outside the measure entirely.