Declaration from representatives of Thai Child Workers 

at the  'The Asian Economic Crisis and its Impact on Working Children', Child Workers in Asia 5th Regional Consultation, Bangkok, February 24-26, 1999). 

Under the economic crisis, we would like to propose guidelines in solving the problems that have affected children, working children and families as follows: 

1. Enable children's participation in giving advice and suggestions to meetings that discuss topics related to children, from the community level to the World Level 

2. The law enforcers should strictly implement the laws that concern the protection of children and labour laws 

3. The employers should provide the following welfare for working children: 

• Arrange places for recreation and rest in the workplace.
• Arrange for appropriate recreation facilities close to the work site.
• Welfare that will protect the health and safety of the children in the workplace. 
• Provide health and life insurance. 

4. In order to provide opportunities to increase income for children and families, the government, NGOs and other concerned parties should: 

• Widely disseminate information on employment and occupation development. 
• Set up suitably located job training centers. 
• To setup an emergency fund, allowing children to obtain loans to use as capital for children to set up their own businesses. 
• The government should directly buy products or goods from the villagers skipping the middle agents. 

5. In order to help: 

• 1) Students who need to work,  
  2) Children who would like to study but can not because their parents are poor, and  
  3) The children who choose to work The government and private agencies should 
  • Allow children to have free formal education in order to ensure the right on education. 
  • Provide continuous scholarships to children who have been affected by the economic crisis. 
  • Arrange for special education, for example for teachers to teach in the factories, and for teachers to be established at village centers. 
  • Arrange for income generating activities for students in school. 

6. The employer has to be responsible for the following: 

• Enable children to choose their employment that is appropriate to their age and capacity. 
• To give children breaks so that they can stretch and relax. 
• To arrange regular medical check ups. 
• Arrange for hygienic and nutritional food. 

7. Law is to be enacted requiring workplaces to arrange hygienic working conditions to meet the following standards: 

• To have a safety system. 
• To have good ventilation, enough light and appropriate temperature. 

8. Children and youth are to have access to information through the following means of communication: 

• To set up youth development centers and information points in the community. 
• To install boards to provide information at various public places in the community, such as shops, libraries and market places. 
• To produce both printed (newspaper) and electronic (television and radio) media to disseminate information on labour issues, education opportunities, and knowledge about drugs and criminal problems. 

9. To guarantee that working children and youth receive fair wages all money matters should be documented so that we are not cheated. Employers and workplaces should install boards clearly announcing wages, and labour protection laws must be strictly enforced. 

10. To reduce mental problems caused by pressure, a center should be set up in each district to provide counseling services to children who face problems caused by stress and anxiety; telephone hotline centers which provide free call service should also be set up. 

These are the needs of Thai child workers.

1. That there was not going to be any dramatic or miraculous change in the present dismal state of affairs. 
2. Therefore, for them `work' is not a choice or option, but a survival strategy. 
3. That left to ourselves we are never going to undo the mess  have created and we therefore need advice and suggestions from the children themselves on how to go about solving this problem even as they demand participation in all discussions concerning them. 

  
These are very reasonable assumptions given our track record. We, the adults of this world, are squarely responsible for the Asian Economic Crisis, the negative effects of globalization, the ethnic, religious and political violence, the displacement and marginalisation of large sections of our population, the dismantling of safety nets and the insecurity related to basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing as well as the threat of social clauses, boycotts and bans.  

The ones affected most deeply by all this have always been the children. For them all this has resulted in a calamity of biblical proportions. And as Ben White (" Why should we want to see again the kind of economic, social and political systems of the 1980s and 1990s, that were geared to growth above all else, and which failed so conspicuously to guarantee to ordinary men, women and children their basic needs for food, shelter, education, health care and the like and their basic human rights? Should we not demand instead a shift to strategies of economic and social development that puts these needs and rights on the top of the political agenda, rather than as some hastily-conceived concessionary 'social safety net' programmes tagged on at the last minute to take care of some of the serious victims of globalization and liberalization?" - Ben White, Asia's working children and economic crisis, pg 2, Feb '99.) said - we then move in with first aid as a means of damage control. Some 36,000 children are rendered destitute in Bangladesh and as an afterthought we start a rehabilitation programme that barely covers a few hundred. This is what I call the' Disaster Management Approach'.  

The real problem, as we have already noted, is the model of development that we have adopted. A lopsided model that is based on consumerism and greed rather than sustainability and need. 
 
So how do we attempt to solve the child labour issue within these parameters? Victor Karunan (Dr. Victor Karunan, the Social Impact of the Macro Economic Crisis on Child Labour, Feb 1999) of Save the Children Fund-UK has emphasized that it is not possible to realise the Convention on the Rights of the Child within the context of the present globalization model. The children told us yesterday that we were attempting to solve this problem from the wrong end - I personally completely agree with both. 

There is no question that children should have an environment where they can grow and develop in a healthy manner and reach their fullest potential. This means having an access to all basic needs, appropriate education and health care and adequate mental, moral and physical stimulation. There is no argument with regard to the goal - the debate is about the means to reach this goal. There are no quickfix solutions, no short cuts. There is no single magic wand such as compulsory education or legislative bans that will just wish this problem away. We also know that in order to solve the problems that working children face we have to solve the causes of child labour - we must go to the root of the problem.  These problems are deeply imbedded in the model of development we have adopted. To solve the child labour issue we have to impact on this model and change it. 

The only way to ensure this is by recognising working children as partners in their development which would require a paradigm shift and major change in our attitudes and mindset. We will have to shift the our focus and view the world through the eyes of working children and not peer down at them from our ivory towers. We will have to give up a part of the power and control we now enjoy and share this space with them. We will have to be prepared to hear uncomfortable questions and find answers. The children will demand transparency and we will have to lay our cards on the table. 

When children truly begin to participate they will hold a mirror up to us and we will be forced to see ourselves for what we really are. They will question every step, monitor every move. Our experience has shown that the organised participation of children brings with it a tacit accountability and transparency on the part of all the actors. 

Had we had surveyed the child labour scene some 15 years ago we would have seen that the role played by the major actors then was very different from now. I am going to take the liberty of making some broad generalizations in order to give you a idea of the shift that has taken place.  
 
Let us first look at the role of international organisations such as the International Labour Organisation and UNICEF.  They were then set up to uphold human rights, workers' rights and children's rights and were fairly independent and members free to act according to their conscience. Now they are under the threat of being dismantled (for example the only growth area in the ILO is the Child Labour Cell), they are working the dictates of the countries that are their funding sources. They are finding it more difficult to put into practice what they preached - such as (working) children's participation in the tripartite decision making process of the ILO even though it is clearly enunciated in the CRC and also is one of the basic principles of the ILO. 

Now let us take governments. In the past they were uninterested in the child labour issue, had no political will to solve it and therefore rationalized child labour as a part of their present stage of development. Some governments were even the biggest employers of child labour in areas of public works and construction. They influenced conventions based on their vested interest in earning foreign exchange or obtaining cheap labour. 

Now Third World countries are pressured into having a political will but still do not know the way. They have been forced into taking drastic measures like rounding up street kids in New Delhi and putting them in remand homes. Many First World countries are propagating boycotts, trade sanctions and other protectionist measures in the name of child labour. It has become another stick to whip developing countires with.  

Some 15 years ago the trade unions were not really interested in the child labour issue. They did little or nothing for the children who worked in establishments and sectors that they had organised and were content with banning child work on paper in the organised sector. 

Now they are led by the interests of the TUs of the North and child labour has become a issue of major interest as it threatens their employment in the era of rapid globalization.  

Trade unions have become implementors of programmes for child labour as they have access to money from the Internationla Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour/ILO for the first time and they are actively blocking children's participation under the pretext that this would legitimize child labour. And they are ones who are the major setters of the international child labour agenda. 

For trade and business organisations child labour was not an issue. Now child labour is one of the main issues - a stick to wield against Third world competitors. In some cases they have been compelled by their First World consumers to take drastic action and their responses in most instances have been kneejerk. They have however become major players (example Nike, Levi) and are even begun to implement the programmes. 

Now let us look at the working children themselves: 10-15 years ago they were just passive recipients of whatever hand was dealt out to them. However, they have always been survivors - for example, street children have found ingenious ways to take their life into their own hands and fend for themselves. Now that has changed. We have seen the emergence of mature and strong movements of working children in many parts of the world, including Africa, Asia and Latin America. The children want to be active participants in all discussions concerning themselves. They believe in change and want to help build a better world. And since 1996 they have proved that they can be effective, reliable and responsible actors. 

Where are we - the NGO sector-in all this? We have always been there for children.  We were, until recently, the only major actors in the field delivering services to kids.  However we were not political and not really concerned with agenda setting. We had an inherent distrust of state and state institutions and worked apart from the government, setting up parallel institutions or infrastructures. We were basically content to clean up the mess others had created. 

Now the time has come for us to redefine our role. We know that we cannot solve the problem ourselves, we are also becoming increasing aware that the State has to discharge its duties towards children. 

We have years of experience and we have developed expertise in some areas. It is time that we show others the way. We know that there is no one standard, universal solution for this problem and that strategies have to be tailormade to suit local specific conditions as the problem is so diverse and complex. 

We know that child labour definitions based on age, wage, sector and scale are redundant and that what is good or bad for children has to be based on a comparison between the conditions of work on the one hand and age, gender and ability on the other. 

We know that we have to impact on structures in order to impact on the model of development. We have to enable children's participation and open up political space for children and for ourselves so that we may participate in the setting of agendas.  And in doing all this we have to fulfil all the rights laid down in the CRC and not violate some in order to fulfil others. 

There are some principles that can enable all this. 

1. The first step is to break down the problem into manageable proportions. However these should not be too small. For example the smallest revenue division or political block such as a canton or `taluk' in India would ideal as it is large enough to show an impact yet small enough to manage. This critical size should also be determined on the basis of government having a definite structure that enables effective interaction and implementation. Here one would be dealing with smaller numbers of children and this would enable a higher level of their participation.  
  
 2. It is essential that the main focus of any intervention opens up political space for the organised participation of working children. This has to be enabled through the creation of sustainable structures at the local level that can expand to regional and national levels.  

What we The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) have done is to enable the formation of:  

• a union of working children called Bhima Sangha 
• parallel government by children called the Makkala Panchayat or Children's Panchayat Government 
• a bridge structure based on the ILO tripartite decision called the Task Force. 
• a Children's Ombudsperson called the  Makkala Mitra or Children's Friend. 

3. To enable the active, equal and qualitative participation of children we have a major responsibility to empower children with the necessary tools, skills and methodologies. These should include research methodology, understanding the power and use of information and means to access it. Analytical tools and skills, the techniques of collective bargaining and the use of information technology.  

4. We should build on what we and  children know for sure and do not hypothesize. In CWC's programmes the children are defining the `unacceptable' and `acceptable' forms of work based on age, gender and ability on the one hand as compared with the conditions of work on the other. These are very specific definitions with clear logic to back it. The question of defining has always been a problem because of its broad generalizations and now the children have found a way to solve it.  

5. It is important that we address the deprivation children face as separate from the work situation as, in many, cases children work because of the deprivation they face.  

6. The problem of inadequate access to services and basic needs such as fuel, fodder, water, child care and health care must be considered carefully for the sustainability of any intervention.  

7. We shoul intervene in altering systems such as education and health to make them appropriate so as to serve children better.  

8. Do not put conditions on any right, this is as good as denying the child this right. You cannot tell a child that s/he has a right to education but only provided s/he does not work and goes to school from 9 to 5 and puts up with a process that is totally inappropriate for her/his life. We should take education to kids not kids to education. 

9. We must increase the capacity of state and community to serve children better and discharge their obligations instead of setting up parallel structures that create dependency. 

10. We must stem the supply of working children by solving the problems that force them to work rather than artificially cutting off the demand. 

11. We should enable the partnerships and/or collaborations of all the actors. There are no good and bad guys in this game.  

The advantage of such an intervention will be the children will be able to  

• monitor the impact of the interventions themselves 
• will be part of the planning and building solutions be better citizens when they grow up and protect the structures they have helped create 
• own the strategy as will all the other actors 

The other positive aspects are that there will be no need for compulsion of any kind. The resources required therefore will be much less. It will increase the capacity of the State and others to serve children better with increased viability and sustainability. 

The plans of action so developed will be appropriate and local specific and impact on national and international policies and trends. 

This will enable true child- centred planning and all the actors will be active in implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  

Such an intervention will actually impact on the model of development and gradually change structures that nurture the right of children while creating child labour-free zones.  

However, in order to achieve this we need to go deeper into the following questions; 

•  What is true participation / protagonism? 
•  What is this partnership between kids / NGOs? 
•  What are the roles and responsibilities to kids and NGOs in this partnership? 

But the main question is are we ready for this-can we handle this? Are we, the adults, willing to admit our failures and approach children with humility and an open mind? Are we willing to really listen to children and respect them and their views even if they drastically differ from ours? 

We need to table these issues and answer them if we are to get any nearer to finding solutions. So let me conclude with the an ancient Chinese proverb: 

•  " We will listen until we hear 
    their tears, their smiles, their 
    sadness and their hopes" 

. .

In any crisis, it is the most vulnerable who go under first.  Human tragedies abound in the economic meltdown of the Asian Tigers where nations have been left grappling with new problems engendered by the so-called liberalisation and globalisation.  As industries collapsed, large sections of both the working and middle classes were left jobless and without a safety net to cope with the crisis. 

What compounded the situation was that tantalizingly, there was food but at prices unreachable. Inevitably this led to food riots.  Communal tensions exploded and many Chinese were targeted.  Such tensions are still simmering, as evinced by the recent Muslim-Christian clashes in the island of Ambon.  This article attempts to trace the genesis of how a country rich in both human and natural resources buckled just like that in the face of hitherto unfamiliar pressures. 

The Suharto family 
 
Ever since the failed, supposedly Communist coup in the mid-Sixties which pitchforked Suharto into power, Indonesia has been the fiefdom of the First Family until he made way for President B. J. Habibie in the wake of the Jakarta riots early last year.  Suharto’s six children had a finger in every remunerative pie, especially his second son Bambang Trihatmodjo. Using privileges and connections bestowed by his father, Bambang amassed car and petrochemical plants, an airline, hotels, a telecommunications group, a TV station and a now-defunct bank, Andromeda.  The bank, incidentally, was shut down along with 15 others as credit risks when it was found that its partners had siphoned off 20 percent of its funds for their own companies.   

The Andromeda Bank is symptomatic of Indonesia’s nepotistic system that has bled the country. With its ballooning foreign debts standing at over $125 billion (some 50 percent of it is private debts) the country is saddled with the largest foreign debt for any developing nation.  Foreign investors have fled and Indonesia has turned to that pawnbroker of poor nations, the International Monetary Fund. 

With 2.5 million young people joining the work force every year, Indonesia will be hard-pressed to cope in the immediate future. With galloping inflation unsettling the rupiah to a fraction of its value, the situation has reversed decades of progress that saw the per capita income rise to $1,000 a year.  Matters have been compounded by flight of capital and brain drain. 

During the previous three decades, Suharto had carefully nurtured his country’s economic fundamentals even as favours extended to his family and cronies helped perpetuate the inequities and resentment. 

Indonesia’s downward slide has resulted in a new section of people facing poverty: the urban working class and lower middle class. Prices of essentials like rice and cooking oil have risen alarmingly, as much as 400 percent in a matter of weeks in some cases.  People who ate thrice a day have had to make do with only twice or even once a day.  It is a common sight to see children scrabbling about in garbage bins and piles of rotting refuse outside markets, begging on the street and turning to crime. 

The Chinese merchants 

Without a safety net to cushion the devastating effects of overnight bankruptcy, the economic victims wreaked their frustration on the merchant class, i.e., the Chinese who have been around since the Dutch colonial rule.  Mobs regularly looted and burned Chinese property, including their Christian churches.  Chinese women were raped early last year in a chillingly methodical manner.   

The Chinese, who had stood by Suharto all these decades (a Chinese tycoon and personal friend, Liem Sioe Liong, has often bailed him out by pumping money into government ventures), feel betrayed.  And they, in turn, have been called traitors for aiding the capital flight.  Incidentally, Liem’s family home too did not escape public anger. It was ransacked and set afire last year. 

The Chinese have always been isolated in Indonesia.  They continued to adhere to their lifestyle, which included eating pork in a Muslim country.  They rarely integrated with the local population and took to trading and money lending, professions scorned by the natives.  Not surprisingly, anti-Chinese pogroms have always erupted whenever the Indonesians needed a scapegoat.   

Consequently, tens of thousands of Chinese fled abroad throwing out of gear the food distribution network also.  President Habibie’s efforts to restore confidence in the country have so far failed to work.  Habibie, a technology freak, is now pumping money into agriculture, besides ordering emergency imports of food.  Farmlands are being upgraded and efforts are on to turn small farms into cooperatives for more efficient use of agricultural inputs.  More importantly, the food distribution work is being restored. 

Crime, dropout rates 

The crime rate in the country is rising, especially in the capital Jakarta.  People are stealing in order to survive.  The dropout rate among children is rising and the younger kids, among the 30 percent who dropped out in the wake of the crisis, help parents collect scraps of iron and paper for sale.  In many instances, there is pressure on girls as young as13 and 14 years old to get married so that there is one mouth less to feed even though their fiances are unemployed. 

According to a UNICEF report, some 17 million families are facing dire food shortages and could soon suffer the first devastating effects of famine.  Children are bearing the brunt of the tragedy and their health, well-being and education is now an internation emergency.  Half of those under the age of two years are likely to be malnourished and more than one child in three may not complete primary school. 

Childhood has been reduced to scavenging and saddled with the daily horror of helping to procure food for the family.  A graphic documentary film, Daun di Atas Bantal  (Leaf on a Pillow) by director Garin Nugroho, provides an 80-minute glimpse into a society which has abandoned its duty to children.  The film, partly funded by the government, was made just before the Indonesia plunged into economic abyss.  Nugroho uses real-life street children with searing effect.  

Glimmer of hopes 

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  The devalued rupiah has helped exports, especially its fabled spices and handicrafts.  Exports have soared and money is coming into hitherto forgotten islands.  In some cases, exports have risen five to six times.  For years, islands off Java have been neglected by the powers-that-be and their export earnings have been creamed off.  But now local wealth is staying with locals.  

This article has been sourced from various press reports.  For other viewpoints, please go through the articles in this section.

Rita Bhatia and Dr. Victor P. Karunan  
(Rita Bhatia is a Policy analyst based in Save the Children Fund's London Head Office.  Dr. Victor Karunan is Regional Developments Advisor, for Southeast, East Asia and the Pacific, at SCF UK's Southeast Asia Regional Office (SEAPRO) in Bangkok, Thailand.) 

One would not immediately think of Rodgers and Hammerstein in a discussion about the Asian crisis and Thai children.  Yet their much acclaimed Broadway musical, the "Kind and I" parodies the grim reality of the Asian crisis.  The musical depicts Kind Rama IV's drive to open up the kingdom of Siam i.e., Thailand, Anna, the royal children's English governess, supposedly represents all the virtues of the modernising West.  She eventually turns her back on the dying monarch and her pupils in rebuke for his apparent barbarism and corrupt values.  Now the West has again turned its back on Asia.  

Even months after the Thai government withdrew support for the baht in July 1997, the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meeting in Hong Kong was celebrating the Asian miracle.  A miracle which demonstrated all the virtues of globalisation and liberalisation.  

The conventional opinion among neo-liberal economists is that the crisis is just a setback in Asia's journey towards free market capitalism.  The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan recently described this acute financial crisis as merely an "unfortunate if significant event in the inexorable trend toward market capitalism and political systems which stress the rule of law". (Quoted in P.S. Golub, "East Asian hits the Buffers" Le Monde Diplomatique 10.10.98 

The setback is blamed on Asia's cronyism, that is politically motivated government guarantees for firms and banks that resulted in risky borrowing and investments.  The implication is clearly that had these countries deregulated their markets more rigorously they might have avoided the crisis. 

These assumptions are guiding much of the West's policy towards Asia today.  The IMF bailout programmes announced in late 1997 and early 1998 are directed at getting the crisis-affected countries to open their economies further.  But the impacts of the Fund's policies have been ignored.  Many observers including Jeffrey Sachs and the IMF (A leaked internal IMF memo about the Indonesia operation admits that its programme aggravated the run on Indonesian banks.  Reported in the Guardian Newspaper, 21.1.98) itself, point out that the Fund's policies aggravated the situation by worsening investor confidence.  

UNCTAD is more forthright, stating that the IMF's policy response has been clearly biased in favour of international commercial banks: "the Fund's lending has been aimed at ensuring that maintenance of the domestic currency's convertibility and free capital flows, and guaranteeing repayment to foreign lenders.  The latter, unlike domestic lenders, emerge from the crisis without substantial loss, even though they had accepted exposure to risk just as the other lenders had done".(UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report, 1998:70) 

As the economic crisis worsens in Russia and Latin America, it becomes clear that the roots lie in the way in which financial markets work, their appetite and incentive for excessive risk taking and herd like tendency towards over-optimism or over-optimism or over-pessimism.  

The Asian crisis is a crisis of global capitalism.  Asia is clearly a victim of the free market.  Those who point their fingers at Asia's crony capitalists forget that it is precisely the knowledge that they are "too big to fail" which is responsible for much of the reckless lending and proprietary trading activities of the largest international banks and the highly leveraged speculative activities of large hedge funds.  "The extent of moral hazard is impossible to measure, But with each new financial crisis, and each bailout whether by the IMF, individual central banks or governments, the in-built bias towards excessive risk-taking is reinforced". ("Taming Wild Money" The Financial Times. 20.10.98) 

Not long ago, the academic Francis Fukiyama described the triumph of capitalism over communism as the "end of history".  In the absence of any countervailing idealogies, the "Washington consensus" - in favour of the free market and a reduced state was pushed upon developing countries through the policies of IMF, World Bank and G & countries. 

Now, in the light of the "human crisis" facing us, was financial liberalisation, that is the expansion of globalised, fast-moving financial markets, ever justified?  For the first time, since the end of the Cold War, the supremacy of free markets is being questioned.  

The traditionally non-interventionist Hong Kong Monetary Authority recently spent an estimated $15 billion to protect its financial markets from attacks from financial speculators.  Malaysia imposed capital controls in September 1998.  Many commentators point to a backlash against globalisation and the free market. 

Ironically as the policy debates shift towards the re-design of the global financial architecture, emphasis moves away from the victims of the crisis.  Now is the time to revisit Asia and look at the consequences of the last 12 months of crisis, credit crunch, wealth destruction and the impacts on children. 

A Case Study of Thailand  

"Children are Thailand's future.  How well the country strengthens and preserves their rights in the face of rapid societal changes will indicate how highly the country values its future". (Children and Their Families in a Changing Thai Society.  UNICEF, December 1997) 

Children make up 33 percent of Thailand's population.  Prior to the crisis, 8 million Thai's were living under the poverty line, 2-3 million of whom were children with limited or no access to education.  Child labour was widespread and official estimates of the number of children in prostitution diverged from between 13,000 to 200,000(op.cit).  In a recent study, Save the Children UK examined the social impact of the economic crisis on vulnerable children in Thailand.  The preliminary results of our study demonstrate how the financial crisis has been cruellest to children and will drastically worsen their pre-crisis situation. 

SCF UK's study of rural communities in two provinces in North Eastern Thailand focussed on migrant workers returning from Bangkok as a result of losing their jobs due to the economic crisis. (Save the Children Fund UK is a leading international NGO working for the development, survival and rights of children in over 65 countries, including the UK. SCF's South-East Asian programmes are in Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia, Philippines, Vietnam.  The draft report: Social Impact of the Economic Crisis in Thailand on Vulnerable Children-Field Study in Khon Kaen and Nongkai is based on a field study in June-July 1998 by Muanpong Juntopas, consultant to Save the Children UK South East Asia and Pacific Office in Thailand, in collaboration with local partners and international agencies).  We discovered that the impacts of the crisis are most strongly felt by children, youth and the elderly.  Migrants are returning to the North East faced with a grim future.  The possibility of finding new employment in the rural areas is remote and the overstretched farming sector offers parents and uncertain future.  Thailand, like the rest of Asia, has been reluctant to create the sort of costly social safety net provided by the West.  Aid for social services and community development from international organisation is in its final stages or was phased out of Thailand during the boom periods.  Now with the crisis, the situation may change for the worse. 

The family, the backbone of Asian society, is clearly cracking under the financial stress.  Thailand's huge burden of private sector debt is taking its toll on household finances, with families themselves falling into debt.  Ninety percent of all the households surveyed are in debt, ranging from Bht 50,000 to 300,000 (US $ 1,356-8,141) (On the 29th October 1998 the exchange rate for the Thai baht was 36.85 to the US dollar).  Family belongings and productive assets are being seized by creditors and unemployed families cannot keep up their debt repayments. 

Education is becoming a luxury which children and youth cannot afford.  A dropout rate of 8-10% was recorded in the sample villages.  Scholarships, free lunches and milk have all been terminated.  The bulk of the dropouts are grade 9 and below, in the age of 12-15.  The potential for child labour is therefore very real in these areas.  Currently around 0.8-1.1 million children aged between 11-14 are child labourers, representing 3 percent of the total 32 million labour force in the country. 

Save the Children is concerned that this figure may increase as families come under increasing financial pressure.  Another social cost is the acceleration of drug abuse among youths, both in urban and rural areas.  There is corresponding evidence that the number of youth arrests and juvenile court cases pertaining to drug abuse, sale and drug related crimes from 1996-98 has doubled. 

Increased competition for survival, frustration and psychological stress are all leading to heightened household and community tension.  This tension has led to increased domestic violence and family conflict due to both parents losing their jobs or financial difficulties, resulting in separation and divorce.  The elderly are bearing the brunt of family breakdown.  The poorest households are more likely to abandon their elderly and young children, leaving them to fend for themselves, putting intolerable strain on elderly women. 

The Asian Crisis in first and foremost a human crisis 

We would urge Asia-Pacific Economic Council leaders not to lose sight of the human dimensions of this crisis nor to ignore their international obligations to children.  As the international community concentrates on saving Asia's financial system, Save the Children UK remains concerned about saving Asia's children.  The post-crisis impacts must not worsen the pre-crisis inequalities.  Thailand signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in February 1992.  

Prior to the economic crisis, Thailand faced the challenge of fulfilling child rights, development and survival in the context of rapid social and economic change.  The economic boom had taken priority over the social development agenda.  Now it faces the more immediate challenge of upholding its commitment at a time when its children are most vulnerable.  The Committee on the Rights of the Child's recently published Concluding Observations on Thailand's Initial State report(The Initial State Report from Thailand was submitted on 23.08.98), stated that: 
"14. The Committee takes notes of the State party's increased allocation in social expenditure, even in difficult economic circumstances.  The Committee remains concerned, however, that in light of Article 4 of the Convention, not enough attention has been paid in allocating budgetary resources in favour of children" to the maximum extent of ... available resources.  In light of Articles 2, 3, and 6 of the Convention, the Committee encourages the State party to pay particular attention to the full implementation of Article 4 of the Convention by prioritising budgetary allocations to ensure implementation of the economic, social and cultural rights of children, to the maximum extent of available resources and, where needed, within the framework of international cooperation". 

"18. The Committee acknowledges the efforts made by the State party to reach vulnerable groups.  The Committee is still concerned, however, that measures adopted to ensure that all children are guaranteed access to education and health services and are protected against all forms of exploitation are insufficient.  Of particular concern are certain vulnerable groups of children, including girls, children with disabilities, children belonging to minorities including hill tribes, children living in rural areas, children living in poverty, children living and/ or working on the streets and asylum seeking children, illegal immigrant children, children in the juvenile justice system, and children born out of wedlock.  The Committee recommends the State party to increase its efforts to ensure implementation of the principle of non-discrimination and full compliance with article 2 of the Convention, particularly as it relates to the vulnerable groups".(Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights on the Child: Thailand 09.10.98. CRC/15/Add.97) 

International NGOs in the region such as Save the Children have an important role to play in monitoring the social impacts, building local capacity to do so, documenting the impacts and formulating a civil society response.  However, this must be made a priority by all governments in the region.  The APEC Human Resources Development Working Group has examined the social and labour-market implication of the crisis, without specifically examining the impacts on children.  In the case of Thailand, the Committee on the Rights of the Child remains concerned that the current data collection mechanism is insufficient to monitor the impacts of policies on children. 

"12... The Committee recommends that the system of data collection be reviewed with a view to incorporating all the areas covered by the Convention.  Such a system should cover all children upto the age of 18 years, with specific emphasis on those who are vulnerable, including economically exploited children, children of single-parent families, children born out of wedlock, institutionalised children as well as children of nomadic and hill tribe communities." (op.cit) 

Despite the current crisis, further trade and investment liberalisation continues to be APEC's priority.  In light of the social impacts of the crisis and their international obligations to children, we would recommend that governments carry out an impact assessment of trade and investment liberalisation on child poverty and protection.  We also call upon all governments to observe internationally agreed standards on child labour and adopt the new ILO Convention on the Worst forms of Child Labour to be finalised in mid-1999. 

We would also urge all governments to recognise the importance of mainstreaming good practice regarding policies and programmes concerned with child welfare and protection.  Disabled and abondoned children should not be overlooked. 

Save the Children UK's experience shows that structural factors have contributed to the growth in the number of children becoming involved in commercial sex work.  Throughout the world, a child's vulnerability to commercial sexual exploitation is often directly related to his or her family's financial circumstances.  We are concerned that rising poverty in the region will lead to increasing numbers of children being pushed into commercial sex work.  In the case of Thailand, the Committee on the Rights of the Child. 

"30... expresses concern at the high rate of continued sexual abuse of children, including child prostitution and trafficking and sale of children, which affects girls and boys.  In this regard, the Committee recommends that measures be taken, on an urgent basis, to strengthen law enforcement and to implement the State party's national programme of prevention... In an effort to effectively combat intercountry trafficking and sale of children, the Committee suggests that the State party neighbouring countries to facilitate the repatriation of trafficked children and encourage their rehabilitation, including within the framework of the regional Mekong Conference on migration.  The Committee urges the State Party to continue implementing the recommendations formulated in the Agenda for Action adopted at the 1996 Stockholm World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.  It also recommends that the State party should envisage the ratification of the 1949 Convention for Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others." 

We would urge all APEC governments to uphold their commitments related to the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the UNCRC; to revisit the recommendations formulated in the Agenda for Action adopted at the 1996 Stockholm World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children; and to ratify the 1949 Convention for Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. 
.   

Presentation to Panel Discussion on `The Asian Economic Crisis and its Impact on Working Children', Child Workers in Asia 5th Regional Consultation, Bangkok, February 24-26, 1999 

Introduction 

At  Child Workers in Asia's 4th Regional Consultation in 1995, the main focus of our concern was globalisation, in the context of economic liberalisation and relatively rapid economic growth in most Asian countries, and the impact of these patterns on working children.  Now, only 4 years later, we meet under a quite different set of circumstances and perspectives.  We have come to discuss, not Asian economic growth but the Asian economic crisis and its impact on working children. 

I would like first to consider what kind of crisis are we talking about? What kinds of effects would we expect such a crisis to have on child employment and child workers?  Since this is a forward-looking consultation at which we are being urged (as Mr. Sanphasit Koompraphant has made clear in his opening remarks) "to learn from each other, as our ideas must never 
stay static", I would like to look towards the future.  In particular, I would like to consider the question: what are the new ideas, new actors, new initiatives in child labour matters in the recent years, and how capable are they of responding to the needs of working children in the 
current context of the failed globalisation/liberalisation project?  

Understanding `crisis'  

One common feature of crisis is that mainstream and establishment forces often try to conceal from ordinary people what is really going on (for example, by giving the crisis a wrong `name').  To talk simply of an `Asian monetary crisis' is masking the real nature of the crisis; what is 
happening, actually, is something much more important than that, more like the crisis of a particular model of development. 

In my view, we should be very wary of business media, finance ministers, banking and IMF circles who still refer to the current problems of Asia as a `monetary' crisis, as if all that needs to be done is to work on the banking system and the exchange rate with some well-tried IMF recipes to bring everything `back to normal', i.e., to make things the same again as they were before the crisis, as Asian economies are pulled back into growth.  It is actually the essence of crises that things after crisis are never the same as they were before.  

Nor should we want them to be the same!  This brings us to another important feature of crisis: in times of crisis we can more easily see deep structural problems and tensions coming to the surface, which are not so easily visible `normal' times. 

Why should we want to see again the kind of economic, social and political systems of the 1980s and 1990s, that were geared to growth above everything else, and which failed so conspicuously to guarantee to ordinary men, women and children their basic needs for food, shelter, education, health care and the like and their basic human rights?  Should we not demand instead a shift to strategies of economic and social development that put these needs and rights at the top of the political agenda, rather than as some hastily-conceived concessionary "social safety net" programmes tagged on at the last minute to take care of some of the serious victims of globalisation and liberalisation? 

Impacts of crisis 

The reading materials for these meetings provide much useful information on the impact of the crisis on child workers in particular countries and particular sectors; in the discussions we will hear many other first-hand illustrations.  I will make no attempt to summarise here, rather just to raise a few general points and some questions. 

First, it must by now be obvious to all of us that neither the `crisis' itself, not its effects, are homogenous throughout Asia (as the presentations we have just heard from Mrs. Damodaran and Professor Lae have made clear).  At present there are only 8 of 23 Asian countries whose economies are actually in decline, showing negative rates of growth (Indonesia being the most severely hit with negative growth of almost 20% by some estimates). 

In many other countries the problem is not one of negative growth, but that growth has slowed down from 6 or 8 to only 3 or 5 percent. Why should that be a problem?  Why should anyone have to get poorer when the cake is still growing, even if it's growing slower than before?  And the same could be asked even of some countries which have negative growth of less than 10 percent (Malaysia, Thailand. Philippines) - when the cake shrinks by only 5 or 6 percent for a year or two, why should anyone become destitute, or have to drop out of school (especially when the cake has been growing so fast during the past 15 years or so, surely there should be some room to absorb shrinkage?). 

Even within countries hard hit by economic crisis, the effects are not homogeneous, between regions, between town and countryside, between economic sectors, between social groups, between men and women, between adults and children.  Some impacts have been directly felt, in the collapse of some economic sectors (construction, and some kinds of manufactures) resulting in the sudden and complete disappearance of jobs. 

In others it is not so much a question of disappearing jobs as of shrinking or eroding real incomes in the face of falling demand for products or services, and/or inflation.  Others, meanwhile, are doing relatively well (prices for farm produce, for example, are generally high). 

How do these impacts make themselves felt on children in the region?  Here again it is not easy to draw conclusions, even for a single country.  If we consider only the case of Thailand, for example, we can read in the latest Child Workers in Asia (CWA) Newsletter one article about children being forced out of urban labour markets and returning home (and the author points to the mixed effects of this, both from the children's and parents' point of view): and in the very next article about children dropping out of school and being forced into the labour market, including prostitution. I'm not suggesting that one report is right and the other wrong, instead 
I'm simply pointing out the complex, varied and sometimes contradictory effects, and the dangers of too quickly jumping to conclusions or generalisations. 

There are widespread reports of massive numbers of children dropping out of school (mainly from Southeast Asian Countries).  Here again some caution is advisable, as Baker's (1999) useful report on Thailand reminds us, we should not too quickly jump to conclusions. 

Two months ago I was doing research in an Indonesian village, when a truck arrived at the village office, loaded with 30 young goats which were to be distributed to school dropouts as a way to provide them with a source of income (in a government programme, part of the social safety net designed to support victims of the crisis).  They could not find any dropouts, and neither have we so far found any: all children upto age 15 in that village are still in school.  That village is certainly not typical of all Indonesian villages: the point is simply that we should not too quickly jump to conclusions about what is going wrong, or what steps are needed to help solve children's problems. 

From many countries we hear of expanding numbers of children trying to earn money on city streets (not necessarily living in the streets): are these children on the streets because they had to drop out of school, or are they so in an attempt to raise enough money to stay in school?  Before the crisis, for example, about two-thirds of street children in Jakarta were enrolled in school (and their street activities were what made it possible for them to remain in school). 

The main problem that some children face may not be their employment, but their sudden unemployment, having lost one relatively `good' job, and having now to find ways to earn money in increasingly crowded informal sectors. 

Certainly, the crisis has stimulated many international agencies and governments to divert some resources into social safety net programmes.  However inadequate these may be, they are certainly better than nothing.  However, rather than congratulating the agencies concerned on what they have recently begun to do, it is important to ask the question: Why is this only being done now?  Why were social safety nets not given priority by governments and international agencies during the last 15 years of growth, when resources were available on a greater scale to make them possible? 

A third and very important feature of crisis in that periods of crisis are also periods of social experimentation.  They generate both the need and the opportunity for sometimes quite radical changes in the way societies and economies are organised.  This brings me to the last question: when we look at the large and growing world of professional and voluntary agencies and organisations that concern themselves with child labour problems, how capable are they of responding to the needs or working children in the current context of the failed globalisation /liberalisation project?  What are the new elements on the scene in the past 10 years: what are the most important new ideas, new actors, new initiatives? 

Rights of the child: have children's rights been realised in ideas and action on child labour problems? 

In a few month's time (November 1999) we will see the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  What has been its impact?  Here there are both positive and negative things to note.  On the one hand, Myers (1999) argues that the CRC has had an important role in promoting quite abrupt and dramatic changes of perspective among many important children's advocacy institutions.  He is referring not so much to Article 32 which guarantees children the right to protection from economic exploitation, not to Article 27 which guarantees children's right to free and universal education, but rather to Articles 3 and 12 which require that the `best interests of the child' be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children and secondly that children have the right to participate in the definition of those best interests. 

Approaching child labour problems from this child rights perspective often leads to quite fundamental re-thinking about the nature of child labour problems and the best strategies to overcome them. 

A good example of a carefully-developed NGO position on child work explicitly based on CRC Article 3, 12 and 32 was found in the reading materials for the following morning's session (Save the Children Alliance, 1997) where this line of thinking was reflected, supported or perhaps 
contradicted the principles on which various organisations' work was based. 

On the other hand, as Myers also notes, Traditional modes of action against child labour have been discredited as ineffective, but successfully tested alternatives are not yet available to replace them."  (Myers 1999, p13). We can also ask, 10 years after the Convention was signed and subsequently ratified by virtually all members of the UN, how many of the world's 
working childen have been affected, directly or indirectly, by these new ideas?  These ideas (again quoting from Myers) are "still more noticeable in publications and seminars than in policies and programmes" (Myers 1999 p13).  There are some exceptions but in the main think perhaps he is right. A Convention is after all no more than a piece of paper, something we will 
be wise to remember when we consider all the recent and current international fuss around the ILO's new planned Convention, to which I will return later. 

New actors and stakeholders 

When talking of new actors, the main new element here is undoubtedly the NGOs themselves.  One only has to look around oneself!  How many of the organisations here today were in existence 10 years ago?  (CWA of course has been around since 1985, but we could perhaps speak of its coming of age during the past 12 years).  Others, including some of the donor organisations, were around but had not yet turned their attention seriously to issues of child work and child exploitation.  It is mainly in the past 10 years that the NGOs have made their presence felt.  The NGOs however do not speak with one voice.  In fact, there are very serious divisions among them on the child labour issue.   

Related to the emergence of the NGOs is the appearance on the scene of organised working children, ready to identify and promote their own interests and priorities at local, national and international levels.  We have seen an impressive example of this today.  Outside Latin America, this is really a phenomenon of the past few years, dating roughly from the historic meeting of working children's representatives from three continents in Kundapura, India, in late 1996.  The problem now is to make the adults listen to the children!  I can't help feeling that we have also 
seen an example of this problem this morning.  So many declarations of working children have told us quite clearly that we should stop seeing `employment' and `education' as two incompatible alternatives and work on better possibilities to combine them (as is the reality for the great majority of schoolgoing children in Europe, for example): why is it so difficult for adults to understand this? 

The renewed interest of the ILO in child labour issues, and in particular the International Programme for the Elimination of child labour (IPEC) programme, deserves mention here because it has been such an important actor on the scene in the past 10 years.  In many Asian countries IPEC has been the largest single sponsor of local NGO action programmes on child labour, as well as the good work it has sponsored on documentation and other fields.  What can be learned from the experience, both positive and negative, of this large programme?  And are these lessons widely available, in publications, for us to learn from them?  What does the current crisis mean for the bold prediction of the ILO Director-General in Oslo in October 1997 that "the war against child labour is being won and it can be won in all countries in the coming 15 years" (quoted in Myrstad 1999, p76)?  What has the ILO itself learned in recent years about the importance of listening to children? Again, we will hear something on these issues tomorrow morning so I will only raise them here, and pass on. 

Another important NGO actor recently on the scene is the Global March Against Child Labour.  Why do I call the Global March an actor ( a march is not an actor or an organisation but a `happening')?  Well, I think the Global March is actually in a process of transition from `happening' to `organisation' or at least to `movement'.  Eight months after the marchers went home, the Global March is still having meetings.  Many of the organisations represented in these meetings (including CWA) participated, in one way or another, in the Global March. 

What were you all marching against?  In fact, as a result of some quite difficult discussions between participating NGOs, the Global March when it happened was not actually a march against the employment of children (even if many of the marchers, and those who reported on it in the mass media, thought it was).  The more carefully defined official aim of the March, 
defined some time in early 1997, was much more positive than a crude demand to chase the world's children out of the labour market: 

"... to mobilise worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children, especially the right to receive a free, meaningful education and to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be damaging to the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development" (Anti-Slavery Reporter 1998:9; see also the March's website at http://www.global-march.org) 

So, it was a march for children's rights and for education, and against exploitation and certain kinds of harmful child employment. 

The Global March ended in Geneva while the ILO was meeting to deliberate on the draft of a new proposed convention on "Elimination of the Worst forms of Child Labour".  This new proposed Convention has occupied much attention on the world scene during the past two years (with several international and regional conferences devoted to it, and having been twice on the agenda of the ILO International Labour Conference), that it is appropriate to close by paying some attention to it. 

ILO's new draft Convention on `Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour' (I have tried a more extended discussion of the proposed new convention in {White 1999}) 

The proposed new convention embodies two important principles which differentiate it sharply from previous conventions including ILO Convention 
no 138: 

• the need to differentiate between more and less harmful forms of children's employment, and 
• the need to establish priorities: "first (worst) things first" 

The proposed Convention, like others, is based not on science and facts but on politics and negotiation.  Its latest draft text, the result of these negotiations: 

• defines `child' as all persons under the age of 18 years 
• defines the `worst' forms as 
• • (a) "all forms of slavery..., sale and trafficking of children, forced or compulsory labour, debt bondage and serfdom": 
    (b) "the use... of a child for prostitution ...[or]...production of pornography" 
    (c) "the use.. of a child for illegal activities, in particular the production of or trafficking of narcotic drugs": 
    and  
    (d) "any other type of work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to jeopardize the health, safety or morals of children" (Art 3,ILO,1998)

   

• member states are obliged to define this last category themselves (Art 4.1), and to  
• ensure the effective implementation and enforcement of the provisions...including the provision of penal and other sanctions, as appropriate" (Art.7.1) 

 The proposed Recommendation 
 

• recommends that in defining the hazardous forms under Art. 3 (d) above, consideration should be given to: 
• • (a) work which exposes children to physical, emotional or sexual abuse: 
    (b) work which is done underground, under water, and at dangerous heights; 
    (c) work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools; 
    (d) work in an unhealthy environment which may, for example, involve exposure to hazardous substances, agents and processes, or to temperature,noise levels, and vibrations damaging to their health; 
    (e) work under particularly difficult conditions such as long hours, duringthe night, or work which does not allow for the possibility of returning home each day," (Recommendation 3,11,0, 1998:12) 

• recommends that programmes of action should give "special attention to: "younger children... hidden work situations, in which girls are at special risk [and]... other groups of children with special vulnerabilities or needs" (Art.2(c) ILO, 1998:12). 

Some questions which may be asked include the following: 

• Who decides at national level on how to define the `hazardous' forms? Who will be involved? How will children be involved? 
• Why does the Convention make no provision for children's participation, either in the definition of `hazardous' forms, or on the consultations on design and implementation of action programmes, in the Convention or in the Recommendation?  The new convention therefore seems to be in contravention of the Convention on Rights of the Child, which has been signed and ratified by virtually all the ILO members who are expected to sign the new convention (and which is mentioned in the preamble). 
• Why is there no role or NGOs established in the new Convention (which still reflects the old tripartite set-up on which the ILO was based at its founding 80 years ago), and in the Recommendation only rather feebly and half-heartedly (Recommendations 2,7 and 14c) 
• Why does the definition of `worst' or `hazardous' forms not include: the employment of children in armed combat, ("the most hazardous form of all"): 
• why does it not consider as `extreme' or `hazardous' work which systematically deprives children of access to education (education is hardly mentioned at all)?  (these points, among others, are made in Global March [1998]). 

More importantly perhaps, we can ask: suppose the Convention, in its present or modified version, is widely adopted and ratified (as it probably will be) - will it make any difference, in the foreseeable future, to the lives of working children?  As already noted, we are talking only of 
another piece of paper.  Conventions come to life only when they become a rallying-point for concerted mobilisation and action by concerned groups, at national and local level.  The main foot-soldiers in these campaigns, I expect, will not be those mentioned in the convention (government, employers' organisations and trade unions) but NGOs and working children 
themselves. 

That's why I think it's important for organisations like CWA and its partners to consider: is this new Convention something you can use, is it something you can work with?  Does it respond to the needs and aspirations of today's working children? Can it help the NGO movement, despite all its internal differences, to find some common ground and agree to make that the basis of common efforts in these times of economic and social crisis?  How ready do you all feel to accept this challenge? 

References  

Anti-Slavery International (1997) Plans for Global March against Child Labour.  Anti-Slavery Reporter VIII3 (2),p.4 

Baker, S.(1998) Thai working children in the economic bust.  Child Workers in Asia Newsletter 14 (1&2), pp.22-25 

Declaration (1999) Declaration from representatives of Thai child labour. Distributed at CWA Regional Consultation, Bangkok, 24-26 February 1999 

ILO (1988) Child Labour Report IV (1) for International Labour Conference, 87th Session (1999). Geneva, International Labour Office. 

Myers, W. (1999) Considering child labour: changing terms, issues and actors at the international level.  Childhood 6 (1) pp 13-26 
           
Myrstad, G. (1999) What can trade unions do to combat child labour?  Childhood 6(1). pp. 75-88 

Save the Children Alliance (1997) The Save the Children Alliance position on child work.  International Save the Children Alliance, Position Paper No. 1, February 1997. 

White, B. (1999) Defining the intolerable: child work, global standards and cultural relativism.  Childhood 6(1), pp 133-144

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