Abstract

Children are often victims of bad treatment, negative social and cultural practices, sexual abuse and all forms of economic hazardous exploitation.

The ideas that animated children’s right movement developed after the Second World War and the atrocities of The Holocaust. Children are human beings below the age of 18 years.

They are unique and privileged since they are a vulnerable group of human beings. Children have human rights such as the right to education, health and a standard of living. These rights have to be respected and protected.

This research aims at exposing child labour as a major infringement of child rights that needs to be eliminated. Children engage in this activity out of desperation or are forced. Although they are coming from poor families, some of them have to work.

Others are trafficked and forced to work in plantations while others are in commercial sexual exploitation. It, therefore, becomes necessary to investigate activities violating children’s rights and possible mechanisms. This work adopts the doctrinal research method which is appropriate in law.

It, therefore, makes use of content analysis. International legal instruments protecting children’s rights at the international level are discussed in relation to the various rights of children. In Cameroon, international legal instruments have precedence over national instruments protecting children’s rights.

These international legal instruments are ratified and applied with other national instruments protecting children’s rights, yet, these rights are still violated.

Cameroon has a good legal framework for the protection of children’s rights. However, child labour which is manifested in its various forms only suggests that more is expected from the government in protecting children’s rights.

Therefore It is recommended that measures should be taken to intensify the fight against child labour in the area of education.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Perspectives on child labour can be understood by examining the history from which they draw meaning. “Child labour”, in terms of harmful activities, as opposed to “child work”, in terms of friendly activities for children, can be traced to the rise in industrial production and capitalism. Records show that child labour appeared in the earlier stages in agricultural societies.

However the practice became more conspicuous in the 18th century Britain and this is when people began to be opposed to it.

Boys as young as 10 were employed in factories and mines whose activities were deemed dangerous to children’s health. By 1880, the English Education Act had decreed that all children between 5 and 10 years should attend school hoping that they would eventually be excluded from workplace considered to be adult sphere.

The term “child labour” was coined in Britain during the 19th century and it implied that the children were not supposed to work at all. Today, in the developed world, child labour is considered inappropriate for children below a certain age.

Activities defined as child labour exclude household and school-related for these are considered not hazardous for children’s health. However, the minimum age by which children should work varies from country to country and is sometimes dependent on the type of work that children do.

Besides, languages in some countries lack phrases forbidding children to work. The most common expression used is the one similar to “child work”.  Many countries as well as international organizations consider child labour exploitative and have made it illegal.

During the Industrial Revolution, children as young as 4, were employed in production factories. At that time, the conditions of work in factories were dangerous and often fatal. Children worked with cotton milling machines; they also worked in coal mines where they crawled through tunnels which were too narrow for adults. Some children worked as domestic servants while others worked as prostitutes.

Children worked as assistants or apprentices in the lodging industries. Girls learned how to sew, knit, and plait straw while boys learned how to soften leather, shape cast iron, and weave warp and weft. Tuttle  argues that the industry preferred children to adults because children provided cheap labour as they were “submissive, uneducated and nimble” Children, mainly from poor families, were expected to help towards the family livelihood.

Apart from wage employment, children also worked on the family farm where they pulled weeds, planted seeds and harvested crops. Such economic forces and stereotyping coupled with child vulnerability became so strong that neither child labour laws nor mandatory schooling legislation were an effective means to stop child labour .

The period of industrialization in Great Britain and other European countries saw children’s work shift from home and farm and into mills, factories and mines. The nature of child labour changed dramatically with changes from the informal to the formal production during the British Industrial Revolution, to bring them in line with new demands by industries.

Unlike the pre-industrial era when children worked at home with their families, children began to work outside the home, in factories and mines for strangers for a wage, creating a rare opportunity for children to become independent wage earners.

Children worked long hours in hot stuffy factories and in cold damp coal and metal mines, with only a few short recesses. It is claimed that children could work as much as 16 hours for a day.

The crusade against child labour in most Western countries began in the late 19th century. Specifically this can be traced back to 1833 when Robert Peel’s Factories Act was passed in Great Britain. Since then, many societies have engaged themselves seriously and systematically to eliminate child labour.

Despite the progress in world economic development and the presence of prohibitive acts such as the Factories Act, the world output of child labour continued to grow. However the period of activism and economic progress (19th and early 20th centuries) saw sharp reductions in child labour in industrialized nations

It has been argued that this reduction was due the shifting of child labour to the developing world which had also its own child labour problems. Indeed child labour was almost completely eliminated from the developed world while it migrated to the developing world which provided favourable social, cultural and economic climate .

In Britain the first meaningful investigation into issues of child labour took place in the 1830s when the English parliament set up a commission.

The commission found that children as young as 8 worked about 16 hours daily. Some children were being sold to working. Some children who lived with their parents supplemented family income with their hard earned wages.

When the Factory Act was passed in 1833 it banned work for persons less than 9 years old and restricted the working day to 8 hours for those less than 14 years. Such activities changed people’s perception on child labour.

Child labour was being likened to slavery, and this change in its perception helped the campaign. This change led into children being treated as persons whose rights mattered .

In the US child labour became an issue in the 1850s especially in large cities like New York. Child labour worsened with increased industrialization.

Parents sent out children as young as 6, to earn something with which to contribute to the household economy. The jobs that children did were considered risky, endangering to children’s lives, and low-paying.

Children worked in dark textile mills and coal mines. Efforts to deal with child labour in the US have remained unsuccessful to the present day; children from migrant farming families still work in the US .

Exploitation of working children in developing countries has been reported since the 1800s. However, political awareness concerning the effects of child labour has gained substantial momentum in the international community only since the start of the 1990s more specifically in 1999 with the adoption of the ILO Convention 182 which focuses on the worst forms of child labour (Law 2005).

Even with this awareness and political intervention, child labour remains business as usual.

African leaders decided to adopt their own version of the CRC; the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (hereafter referred to as the African Children’s Charter), which was adopted in July 1990 went into force in November 1999 .

These are two internationally recognized treaties protecting children’s rights and welfare in Africa. There are others such as the Declaration on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Also, some courts protect children’s rights and welfare in Africa such as the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

This is a continental court established by African countries to ensure protection of human and peoples’ rights in Africa. It compliments and reinforces the functions of the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights.

In Cameroon, the CRC and the African Children’s Charter (hereafter referred to as ACRWC) were recognized, accepted and ratified  as part of its laws ensuring the protection of children’s rights and welfare.

As per article 45 of the Constitution of Cameroon, the ratified treaties and international agreements take precedence over national laws.

Cameroon is seen to be a monist state in terms of the status of International instruments duly ratified by the government. However, with regards to the application of ratified treaties, Cameroon is dualist as such treaties only take effect through domestication by national law.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

There is a good enforcement mechanism of children’s rights at the international and national level. This is evident in various international Conventions and Declarations such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (CRC), and the African Charter of the Rights and Welfare of the Child 1990 (The African Children’s Charter) in 1993.

Cameroon to this effect has ratified the CRC and the African Children’s Charter. Cameroon has a good legal framework such as the Labour Code, Penal Code, and Criminal Procedure Code. This notwithstanding, there is the continuous practice of child labour.

Children are taken from rural areas to urban areas by foster parents with promises of care and education, whereas, they are turned into labourers and victims of domestic violence. Some are converted into public vendors in streets aged 5 to 14 years .

This violation is also manifested in the various forms of child labour such as child trafficking and sexual exploitation especially child prostitution. The practice of child trafficking affects the protection of children’s rights in Cameroon.

Children are trafficked from the rural areas to urban areas to be used as labourers, hawkers, prostitutes, thieves and street beggars. The Cameroon National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms which is the main enforcement mechanism of violations of children’s rights is impeded in its duty in this respective.

This is due to two reasons. Firstly, the National Commission for Human rights and Freedoms is not independent from the government. This is evident for the fact that the government appoints its key personnel and funds the commission.

With this scenario, it becomes difficult for the commission to write ill about the government. Serious violations of children’s rights are therefore not reported. Secondly, decisions of the commission relating to human rights violation are not binding. As such, it does not deter violation of children’s rights.

1.3 Research Questions

The study shall be guided by the following research questions;

1. What are the laws on child labor in International law?
2. Are there any legal frameworks on child labor in Cameroon?
3. How effective are the laws on child labor in Cameroon?
4. Are there any recommendations on child labor in Cameroon?

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