Submitted by crinadmin on
EFCW summary of the publication
Researching in children and work in Europe constitutes a
challenge. Childwork has recently been reported to be present in
European countries but the situation is inadequately
documented: very little has been clearly investigated and
researched in-depth. In Western European countries forms of
unacceptable child labour exist and include commercial sexual
exploitation, sexual and physical abuse of child workers;
exploitation of domestic workers; child trafficking, employment of
children under hazardous conditions, and problems of street
children. In countries of Central and Eastern Europe the
transition to a market economy, increasing poverty, and the
restructuring of the welfare system have made economic
exploitation of children more likely, and has been reported in
many of these countries. Roma minorities suffer from particularly
high levels of poverty and child work.
However, there is a large number of European working children
who want to do so, who, successfully or not, combine school and
work for their consumer desires. This is the reason why,
particularly for Europe, a large variety of definitions come up and
are needed: child work, child labour, child employment, economic
exploitation of children. They describe various situations in which
working children are involved throughout Europe.
This study is not meant to be a comprehensive overview on child
work in Europe, but after having given an exhaustive view of the
international pieces of legislation on child work and their state of
implementation in the EU Member States, it analyses four case
studies: the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy and Portugal.