CHILD LABOUR

employment of children of less than a specified legal age. In Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, children of less than 15 rarely work except in commercial agriculture, because of the effective enforcement of laws passed in the first half of the 20th century. In the United States, for example, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set the minimum age at 14 for employment outside of school hours in nonmanufacturing jobs, at 16 for employment during school hours in interstate commerce, and at 18 for occupations called hazardous by the secretary of labor. In less industrially developed countries, on the other hand, millions of children-some as young as seven-still toil in quarries, mines, factories, fields, and service enterprises. They make up more than 10 percent of the labour force in some countries in the Middle East and from 2 to 10 percent in much of Latin America and some parts of Asia. Few, if any, laws govern their employment or the conditions under which work is performed. Restrictive legislation is rendered impractical by family poverty and lack of schools. The movement to regulate child labour began in Great Britain at the close of the 18th century, when the rapid development of large-scale manufacturing had resulted in the exploitation of very young children in mining and industrial work. The first law, in 1802, which was aimed at controlling the apprenticing of pauper children to cotton-mill owners, was ineffective because it did not provide for enforcement. In 1833 the Factory Act did provide a system of factory inspection. Organized international efforts began with the first International Labour Conference in Berlin in 1890. Although agreement on standards was not reached at that time, similar conferences and other international moves followed. In 1900 the International Association for Labour Legislation was established at Basel, Switz., with branches in at least 16 countries, to promote child labour provisions as part of other international labour legislation. A report published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) of the United Nations in 1960 on law and practice among more than 70 member nations showed serious gaps in protection afforded young workers in nonindustrial employments, including agriculture and handicrafts.