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[BEIJING, 3 September 2007] Child labour is growing in China, a monitoring group said Monday, underscoring long-standing concerns voiced by human rights groups and even the International Olympic Committee. A combination of poverty, defects in the educational system and weak laws is allowing the practice to flourish, the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin said. Authorities need to strengthen enforcement against using children, boost education spending and allow nongovernment organizations a freer hand to help child workers, the group said in a report. "While poverty is a necessary condition for the creation of child labour, it is by no means the only condition," CLB said. Eliminating child labour in China "does not necessarily require the prior elimination of poverty," it said. China's Foreign Ministry did not respond immediately Monday when asked to comment. Chinese laws bars children under the age of 16 from the job market and has special legal protection for workers below age 18. However, a large number of children younger than 16 enter the labour market each year — sometimes even forced to work as slaves, the report said. Most are middle school dropouts, although they also include "work-study" students transported to factories or farms during the school holidays. The use of "work-study" students was alleged in an investigation into a company found to have used child labor to produce licensed products for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Neglected issue Though the problem is believed to be widespread, reporting on child labour by the entirely state-controlled media is generally sparse. However, the issue burst into the public consciousness this summer after complaints were posted on the Internet by parents of boys forced to toil under harsh conditions as slave labourers in brick yards. Chinese media reported on rescue efforts, but there has been little follow-up. Child labourers mostly toil outside the public eye, but some can be seen performing menial labor in restaurants or shops, or handing out advertising cards on city sidewalks. CLB blamed the high dropout rates on underinvestment in education, leaving Chinese parents with a heavy burden of fees and tuition payments despite the government's claim of nine years of free education. China spends just 2.7 per cent of its gross domestic product on education, less than half of what the United Nations recommends, the report said. Partly as a result, China's middle school dropout rate is almost certainly several times the official figure of 2.5 percent given by the Education Ministry in its 2005 report. The rate could be as high as 40 percent in some mountainous areas where poverty remains widespread, it said. "We therefore believe that, in addition to reforming and strengthening its legal enforcement measures, the government should encourage all levels of society to join in a wide-ranging collaborative effort aimed at tackling the problem at its root," CLB said. Most crucially, the government should rapidly overhaul China's primary and middle school structure, and invest sufficient funds to ... reduce the supply of child labor at its source," the report said. Further information
pdf: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/03/asia/AS-GEN-China-Child-Labor.php