Measuring the Effectiveness of Human Rights Law

My research regarding the effectiveness of Human Rights law regarding child labor led me to the United Nations Global Compact, in addition to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ILO Minimum Age Convention, No. 138 and ILO adopted Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, No. 182, which were mentioned previously. The UN Global Compact is a framework for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. The Global Compact relies on public accountability, transparency and the enlightened self-interest of companies, labour and civil society to initiate and share substantive action in pursuing the principles upon the Global Compact is based. The Global Compact involves all the relevant social actors: governments, companies, labour, civil society organizations and the United Nations. Principle Five of the UN Global Compact is titled Businesses Should Uphold the Effective Abolition of Child Labour and sets forth a comprehensive list of actions which businesses should adhere to in the workplace along with actions to be undertaken by the Community. http://www.unglobalcompact.org/.

There is much written on Human Rights Laws relating to child labor but whether it has been effective is a matter of opinion. There is a better awareness of the horrors of child labor as evidenced by the ILO's declaration of June 12 2008, as "World Day Against Child Labor". It is also politically correct to support anti-child labor practices, however, the statistics on child labor remain staggering. The pervasive philosophy is that child labor is a barrier to education and children who do not complete their primary education are likely to remain illiterate and never acquire the skills needed to get a job and contribute to the development of a modern economy resulting in under-skilled, unqualified workers and thus perpetuating the cycle.

As we talked about in our last class, statistics are an important factor in measuring effectiveness. The 2007 EFA [Education for All] Global Monitoring Report indicated that approximately 77 million primary aged children are not enrolled in school. For every 100 boys in school, there are only 94 girls. The ILO's most recent Global report states that in the 5 - 14 age group more than 165 million children are involved in child labour. In secondry education gross enrollment rates remain low in many regions, in SubSarharan Africa 30% and in South and West Asia, 51%. 82% of out of school children are in rural area.

It is obvious from the above statistics that combating child labor remains an arduous task but I believe that as global awareness and grassroots community activism increases, there can be considerable improvement.