Child labour problem persists
Nearly half of all child labourers in Thailand were exposed to bad working conditions, a non-government organisation said yesterday.
Taneeya Runcharoen, associate co-ordinator of Child Workers in Asia, said working in dangerous environments affected workers' health, security and morale.Poor conditions included working over eight hours a day, at irregular hours, in underpaid jobs or without any payment at all. Sexual abuse and working with harmful chemicals and sharp tools continued to be a problem, Taneeya said, during a workshop on 'Human Trafficking in the Mekong River Basin'. A study from last November to February focused on children working as beggars, maids, fishing boat crews, hired-hands on agricultural farms, shop workers and those in karaoke bars. Beggars and nearly half of the rest worked in sub-standard conditions. About 600 such cases were found in Chiang Rai, Tak, Samut Sakhon and Udon Thani - and 300 cases each in Songkhla and Pattani. Children were also used in illegal activities such as drug dealing, sweatshops and the sex trade, Taneeya said. Taneeya said Thailand had done well in the past decade in lowering the number of child workers from four million down to one million. Child labourers under 15 now stood at 1 per cent compared to the previous 5 per cent. She urged the government to provide better education to families to prevent them from selling children, and to state child labour conditions clearly in labour laws. The Nation
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