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X. Child Labor in International Law

Under international law, child labor in itself is not prohibited, in recognition of the potential benefits of some forms of work and of the realities that require many children to enter the workforce to support their own or their families’ basic needs. Instead, international treaties address the circumstances under which children may work and require states to set minimum ages for employment. In addition, children who work do not give up the basic human rights that all children are guaranteed; in particular, they continue to enjoy the right to education.

Minimum age for employment

As already noted, the ILO Minimum Age Convention, ratified by Morocco, sets the minimum age for admission to employment at fifteen.  The convention further states that national laws “may also permit the employment or work of persons who are at least 15 years of age but have not yet completed their compulsory schooling” provided the work “is not likely to be harmful to their health or development,” and does not prejudice their attendance at school or participation in vocational training programs.¹⁵³  Moreover, for such children, the convention requires states to “determine activities in which employment is permitted and [to] prescribe the number of hours during which and the conditions in which such employment or work may be undertaken.”¹⁵⁴

The prohibition on economic exploitation and harmful or hazardous labor

The CRC obligates Morocco to protect children from “all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.”¹⁵⁵ It guarantees all children under eighteen the right “to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be . . . harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.”¹⁵⁶ Moreover, states parties to the convention are obligated to regulate the hours and conditions of employment and to ensure that children have adequate time for rest, leisure, and play.¹⁵⁷ While the treaty does not define economic exploitation, Human Rights Watch believes that this threshold is crossed when, as described in this report, child domestics are required to work extremely long hours without adequate rest, leisure, and play, for wages far below the lowest minimum wage set in law for other categories of workers.¹⁵⁸

The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, ratified by Morocco on January 26, 2001, develops the prohibition on harmful or hazardous work. Under that Convention, some forms of child labor are flatly prohibited, including “slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children…and forced or compulsory labor.”¹⁵⁹ Other types of work are prohibited if they constitute “work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.”¹⁶⁰ States parties determine what constitutes prohibited hazardous work in consultation with workers’ and employers’ organizations, considering “relevant international standards, in particular… the Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation.”¹⁶¹ Among other factors, the recommendation calls for consideration of the extent to which the work “exposes children to physical, psychological or sexual abuse” or involves “particularly difficult conditions such as work for long hours or during the night or work where the child is unreasonably confined to the premises of the employer.”¹⁶²

The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention further obligates states parties to implement programs of action to eliminate as a priority the worst forms of child labor, including taking effective and time-bound measures to provide direct assistance for the removal of children from the worst forms of child labor and for their rehabilitation and social integration, to identify and reach out to children at special risk, and to take into account the special situation of girls.¹⁶³ The Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation in particular urges states to give “special attention” to “the problem of hidden work situations, in which girls are at special risk.”¹⁶⁴ 

The Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation also sets out detailed steps states should take in implementing the Convention. Among these steps are the collection of detailed, disaggregated  information and statistical data on the nature and scope of child labor, the creation of mechanisms to monitor implementation, and the coordination and cooperation of the responsible national authorities.¹⁶⁵

Forced labor

Forced labor is among the worst forms of child labor and is prohibited for all children under eighteen. The ILO Forced Labour Convention, ratified by Morocco in May 1957, defines forced labor as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”¹⁶⁶

In determining whether particular working conditions constitute forced labor, the ILO Committee of Experts has said that the “menace of any penalty… need not be in the form of penal sanctions, but might take the form also of a loss of rights or privileges.”¹⁶⁷ In its 2005 Global Report on forced labor, the ILO discusses “the often subtle forms of coercion” that characterize forced labor, and sets out “the main elements or characteristics that can be used to identify forced labour situations in practice.” Examples of menace of penalty include: physical violence against worker or family or close associates, sexual violence, threat of supernatural retaliation, imprisonment or physical confinement, financial penalties, denunciation to police or immigration authorities and deportation, dismissal from current employment, exclusion from future employment, exclusion from community and social life, removal of rights or privileges, deprivation of food, shelter or other necessities, shift to even worse working conditions, and loss of social status. Example of lack of consent include: physical confinement in the workplace, psychological compulsion, physical abduction, deception or false promises about types of work and terms of work, withholding or nonpayment of wages, retention of identity documents, birth/descent into slave or bonded status, sale of person into the ownership of another, and induced indebtedness.¹⁶⁸

Trafficking of children for forced labor

The most widely accepted definition of child trafficking is that of the Trafficking Protocol of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which defines child trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of a child for the purposes of sexual or labor exploitation, forced labor, or slavery.¹⁶⁹ Unlike the CRC’s Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, the Trafficking Protocol applies even if a parent or guardian did not receive payment or other consideration to move a child to a situation of exploitation.¹⁷⁰ Although Morocco has not signed or ratified the Trafficking Protocol, it has ratified the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, which includes forced labor and child trafficking for forced labor among the worst forms of child labor. Governments have an affirmative obligation to prevent the worst forms of child labor.¹⁷¹ 

The ILO considers a child to be trafficked into domestic service when she is “obliged to leave her…home village to go to the city to find work and who is recruited into domestic service where the conditions are exploitative (for example, the child is ‘paid’ in food and lodging rather than receiving a wage).”¹⁷² The ILO explains that even if the relocation element of trafficking is voluntarily, if the domestic service is exploitative and satisfies any of the criteria for the worst forms of child labor, then the child is considered to be trafficked, and the employers are traffickers under international law.¹⁷³

Human Rights Watch believes that the testimonies of three of the fifteen domestics profiled in this report may be consistent with the international definition of trafficking of children into forced labor. They are the testimonies of Zahra H., whose employer beat her when she didn’t do what she was told to do but who, at age eight, was too young to leave by herself and who didn’t receive visits from her family at her place of employment; Rasha A., whose employer locked her inside the house when the employer went out, beat her when she did work poorly, and threatened her with more beatings if she complained to her family during visits the employer supervised; and Salwa L., whose employer refused to pay money owed her when she said she wanted to quit and threatened to bring the police to beat her to extract additional money.

In addition to these three cases, one other case we investigated has elements that suggest forced labor: Samira M., whose employer required her to work eighteen-hour days, beat her if she was slow bringing things, threatened to bring police to beat her, and didn’t let her go out “except to take out the garbage.”¹⁷⁴

The right to education

Under international law, the right to education is guaranteed in the CRC and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These instruments dictate that primary education must be “compulsory and available free to all.”¹⁷⁵ Secondary education, including vocational education, must be “available and accessible to every child,” and states parties must “take appropriate measures, such as the introduction of free education and offering financial assistance in case of need.”¹⁷⁶ In addition, the CRC obligates states parties “to take measures to encourage regular attendance at school and the reduction of drop-out rates.”¹⁷⁷ States parties to the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of  Discrimination against Women are obligated to end discrimination against girls in education, including access to schooling, reduction of female student dropout rates, and programs for girls who have left school prematurely.¹⁷⁸ Both primary and secondary education must include elements of “availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability.”¹⁷⁹ The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights defines availability to mean “functioning educational institutions and programmes…to be available in sufficient quantity within the jurisdiction.”¹⁸⁰ Educational institutions must be accessible to all without discrimination, to be “within safe physical reach,” and to be “affordable to all.”¹⁸¹ The Committee elaborated that although primary education should be “free to all,” state parties are “required to progressively introduce free secondary and higher education.”¹⁸²

The CRC explicitly guarantees children the right to be protected from “performing any work that is likely… to interfere with the child’s education.”¹⁸³ The Worst Form of Child Labour Convention highlights “the importance of education in eliminating child labour” and calls on states to “ensure access to free basic education, and, wherever possible and appropriate, vocational training, for all children removed from the worst forms of child labour.”¹⁸⁴