violence against children WORLD REPORT ON - CRIN

“No child should have to fight a war or carry heavy loads and neither should a child have to work longhours without pay or be abused or treated unfairly. Children deserve to be treated as equalsin the workplace and those who abuse them should be severely punished. Equality and qualityin the workplace is what the children want.”Child, Eastern and Southern Africa, 2005 XI252Violence against children in places of workcontext of abuse. However, apprenticeship ofthis kind may be the only path out of dire povertyfor young workers trying to obtain skillsin the informal economy. 111 Where apprenticeshipschemes exist in industrialised settings,there are also some reports of abuse. Onestudy in France found that 16% of apprenticesreported physical or verbal violence, 112 and aEuropean Union study in 2000 found that 2%of apprentices were victims of physical violencefrom fellow workers. 113Workplace characteristicsRisks related to the workplace itself vary accordingto whether the working activity takes placein an organised setting, such as a factory or aninformal setting, such as a backroom enterprise;whether the workplace has special characteristicsof remoteness or danger, such as mines,fishing, quarrying, and some types of agriculture;114 whether it consists of a closed environmentsuch as a household; or whether it is partof an illegal activity, such as sexual exploitationor drug dealing. The most extreme examplesof workplace violence against children occurwithin the worst forms of child labour.Scavenging: a workplace full of riskChildren in unsafe working environmentsare at constant risk of violence. Such environmentsinclude glass factories, mining, andplantation agriculture, especially where healthand safety regulations are lax or non-existent.115 Severe injuries can result from dangerousmachinery, guns, accidents, toxic fumesand explosions. All such ill-effects affectyoung and growing bodies and minds morethan those of adults. Reports from a range ofcountries of systemic workplace abuse againstchildren include for example: inhumane conditionsin the cotton industry 116 and unsafeuse of pesticides around agricultural workers,117,118, 119including childrenEnvironmental factorsWhere the environment is itself full of risk,children who work in open spaces are constantlyexposed to violence. In some places,work in the service industries such as restaurantsand shops may expose young workers toarmed robbery or customer aggression. Whenworking children feel constantly threatenedby violence in the environment, they may alsoIn many countries in Asia and Latin America, large numbers of under-age childrenwork on garbage dumps as scavengers. In the Philippines, in Metro Manila’s QuezonCity, thousands of children and their families make a living from dumpsites and live insatellite communities. In 2000, one of the garbage mountains collapsed under torrentialrains, killing between 500 and 1,000 adults and children who were buried in thetrash. Even on a daily basis, injury from truck manoeuvres or sharp objects is common,as is infection from rotting material. 120