International Protection Of Child Labor's Rights

Child labor is of long standing, however, it prevailed from the Industrial Revolution. From human's history, although great development has taken place in economic and political civilization, child labor, as an inhuman phenomenon, has never disappeared. Indeed, there are many child labors in all the countries or regions. In order to earn their temporary living, thousands of children take on the futureless work, and then lose their essential educational opportunity, healthy, even the life, especially in some developing countries in Southeast Asia, South Sahara Africa, and Latin America. Child labor not only severely impairs children' individual rights but also reflects on a vicious circle of poverty and underdevelopment.The international protection for children' right develops from the early 20^th century. ILO set up in 1919 considers the protection of children as one of its most essential missions. From the start, ILO enacted a series of pacts on the minimum age of employees to protect children's right, which is later amended as Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138). After that, in June 1999, the 87^th commission of ILO passed Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention, 1999 (No. 182), which specifically regulates every member's responsibility and the concrete measures on forbidding and eliminating the child labor.Generally speaking, ILO takes the following actions on implement and advance the labor standard: the first is to define the child labor's right through accepting the convention and proposals enacted by ILO; the second is to insure every member and the public to understand child labor' right thoroughly; the third is to advance the implement of the relevant convention in member countries through international inquiry and surveillance on child labor issue; the fourth is to provide members technique and policy to eliminate child labor by instituting some specific action program; the fifth is to popularize the standard of enterprises' social responsibility with other international organization, such as WTO, in order to purely eliminate child labor. However, from the practical perspective, the effect of ILO' above measures is not so good. Neither they don't eliminate child labor, nor do they create a better work condition for child labor. Malfunction of ILO's protection measure on child labor mainly result in the deficiency of implement mechanism. The implement of ILO's conventions is mainly depended by surveillance which is moral in principle but not political censure and economic discipline. In order to offset the disadvantage of ILO, some multinational that care to take on the responsibility or ever employed child labor begin to participate in and attempt to actively advance the protection movement. Moreover, some NGOs aiming at human rights protection put up the active attitude, too.In December 1998, the 6th session of the 9th NPC Standing Committee ratified the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) announcing that the minimum age of employee is 16 in China's territory or the conveyance registered in China. In October 2002, State Council promulgated Provisions on the Prohibition of Using Child Labor, forbidding that any unit or individual to employ minor under 16 to work. However, admittedly, there are many child labors which come from poor family in China's Midwest developing regions, especially in the spinning, costume machining, shoemaking, toy-making, electronic industry, etc. Accordingly, it should be paid more attention to by relating departments.There are four chapters of this dissertation in all except introduction and conclusion.Chapter one is "International Child Labor Situation". It mainly compares and analyses the definition of "child" and "child labor", scan the actuality of child labor in globe to make a general understanding, and briefly expatiate the reason for why should provide the international protection for child labor.Chapter two is "International Law Framework on Child Labor's International Protection". It briefly introduces the history of child labor's international protection, crosses out the framework of relative international law on child labor, and cards out the common law and special law on child labor's international protectionChapter three is "Implement Mechanism of Child Labor's International Protection, Plight and Outlet". It expounds the implement mechanism of child labor's international protection, explains the enterprises, NGOs, and individuals' function and disadvantage in child labor's international protection, and gives the suggestion for reform.Chapter four is "Child Labor Problems in China and Its Legal Regulation". It pictures out the child labor issue in China, discusses the legislative and practical side of child labor, points out the problem, and brings forward the suggestion for reinforce the protection of child labor.