Agriculture is a sector where many children are effectively denied education which blights their future chances of escaping from the cycle of poverty by finding better jobs or becoming self-employed.

 

            “The rural sector is often characterized by lack of schools, schools of variable quality, problems of retaining teachers in remote rural areas, lack of accessible education for children, poor/variable rates of rural school attendance, and lower standards of educational performance and achievement. Children may also have to walk long distances to and from school. Even where children are in education, school holidays are often built around the sowing and harvesting seasons”, explains Michele Jankanish, Director of ILO-IPEC.

 

             Agriculture is also one of the three most dangerous sectors in which to work at any age, along with construction and mining. Whether child laborers work on their parents' farms, are hired to work on the farms or plantations of others, or accompany their migrant farmworker parents, the hazards and levels of risk they face can be worse than those for adult workers.

 

            “Because children’s bodies and minds are still growing and developing, exposure to workplace hazards can be more devastating and long-lasting for them, resulting in lifelong disabilities. Therefore the line between what is acceptable work and what is not is easily crossed. This problem is not restricted to developing countries but occurs in industrialized countries as well”, says Jankanish.

She emphasizes, however, that not all work that children undertake in agriculture is bad for them or would qualify as work to be eliminated under the ILO Minimum Age Convention No. 138  or the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention No. 182.

 

             “Age-appropriate tasks that are of lower risk and do not interfere with a child’s schooling and leisure time are not at issue here. Indeed, many types of work experience for children can be positive, providing them with practical and social skills for work as adults”, she says.

 

             On the other hand, working children represent a plentiful source of cheap labor, often at an early age. Most statistical surveys only cover child workers aged 10 and above, but children under 10 are estimated to account for 20 percent of child labour in rural areas.