September 16, 2015
Thai seafood industry puts child workers at risk, says ILO report
Children who work in Thailand’s seafood processing industry are working in more dangerous conditions than those in other industries, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Asian Foundation.
The report found that 19.4% of child laborers in the seafood industry reported workplace injuries compared to 8.4% in other industries, while 44.3% reported having no personal protective equipment. Most were unaware of child labor laws and two-thirds did not have an employment contract.Migrant child workers are more likely to work longer hours and less likely to be in education, according to the report.
The report makes a number of policy recommendations, including better protections for migrant child workers, school-based vocational training as an incentive to keep children in school, and more vigilance against malpractice by international buyers.
The ILO’s Maurizio Bussi commented that: “Child labour is truly unacceptable in the 21st century. Unfortunately, it remains a symptom of existing labour market governance challenges, coupled with a lack of genuine alternatives for vulnerable workers and their families to freely avail of. […] Unquestionably, a concerted and well-coordinated multi-stakeholder response is critical to tackle labour standards violations, such as child labour, in this highly complex supply chain.”
Thailand is a major exporter of canned tuna, accounting for 53% of sales worldwide. The industry is worth over US$1 billion a year, with 95% of sales in overseas markets, mainly the US, Europe, and Japan. The country’s shrimp production industry, meanwhile, is worth over US$2 billion. Collectively these industries employ 900,000 workers, the majority of whom are migrants principally from Myanmar.
IZA World of Labor author Eric Edmonds has written about the effectiveness of minimum-age regulations in combatting child labor. He finds little evidence that such regulations significantly reduce child labor, writing that: “Going forward, coordinating compulsory schooling laws and minimum age of employment regulations may help maximize the joint influence of these regulations on child time allocation, but these regulations should not be the focus of the global fight against child labor.”
Read more on this story at BBC News and Deutsche Welle. The ILO/Asia Foundation report can be found here.
Related articles:
Does minimum age of employment regulation reduce child labor? by Eric V. Edmonds
Designing labor market regulations in developing countries by Gordon Betcherman