Child labor in Brazil may be 7 times higher than research shows

The number of Brazilians aged between 7 and 14 working in some form of child labor may be about seven times higher than official statistics indicate, according to an unprecedented study that measured the underreporting of child labor — a problem that compromises both the supervision regarding the formulation of public policies.

In 2015, data showed that 2.5% of Brazilian children in this age group worked, equivalent to 738,600 people, according to the most recent data from the WDI (World Development Indicators), a compilation of international statistics from the World Bank.

But a study by Brazilian researcher Guilherme Lichand, from the University of Zurich (Switzerland), and Sharon Wolf, from the University of Pennsylvania (USA), concluded that this percentage would actually be 19.15%, or 5.658 million children.

The survey follows data aggregated by the ILO (International Labor Organization), based on surveys carried out in different countries. “These surveys usually follow a methodology in which adults are first asked if their children work. If they lie — out of fear of punishment, shame or otherwise — the statistics end up being reduced,” he says.

The parameters used by them to define child labour, explains the researcher, follow the definitions of international organizations, such as Unicef ​​(United Nations Children’s Fund), and were made with children enrolled in schools.

“If the child is less than 12 years old, whatever the number of hours worked, and receives some type of remuneration for this, child labor is already considered. If the child is between 12 and 14 years old, it is defined as from 14 hours weekly, as long as they are not dangerous occupations. From 15 years old, over 41 hours”, he explains.

The study points out that, when children are asked if they perform some type of paid work, the answer tends to be much greater than when the same question is asked to responsible adults. The researchers were able to prove this difference from responses obtained from children and parents who worked in the cocoa harvest in Côte d’Ivoire and a “tira-teima” made by an NGO.

“The researcher went to the fields at the right time. In this case, in which 2,000 people were heard, it was proved that the children were telling the truth, since the NGO’s results were slightly less than a percentage point different from the answers of the children.”

From the data compiled by the World Bank for 97 countries, they were able to establish a relationship between the parents’ reports and the result that was closer to reality. The model considers points such as the percentage of children working in risky activities in each country and the number of hours worked.

As the incidence of working children is higher among students in rural schools than in urban schools, it was also necessary to consider in the calculations whether the answers came from more urban areas or not.

In the case of Brazil, as it is one of the few countries in the study that carry out some research in which this question is asked to children —the SAEB (Basic Education Assessment System)—, it was possible to compare the results obtained through the database World Bank data with those of the national survey.

In Saeb’s 2019 survey, a question asked to children aged 10 and 11 showed that 15% of them had worked for at least one hour. Considering children out of school, this percentage can reach 17%, coinciding with the result of the study, adds the researcher.

“It is not a matter of occasionally helping parents at home, but of paid child labor. When President Jair Bolsonaro, for example, says that it is good for children to work, what kind of work is he talking about? age? It’s not clear and that stops the discussion”, he says.

Despite the expressive increase, in comparison with other Latin countries, Brazil is better than Argentina (which rises from 5% to 20.3%), Bolivia (from 13.9% to 34.9%) and Colombia (from 5, 6% to 24.3%), for example. In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, which helped create the model, the rate increases from 36.5% to 50.8%.

The cocoa sector was chosen for historically maintaining a strong presence of child labor. The organization Papel Social was hired in 2018 by the ILO to research the activity in the interior of Brazil.

“There are about 7,000 children and adolescents working in the cocoa chain, mainly in Bahia and Pará. The phenomenon is the same in palm oil, tobacco or plaster”, says the executive director, Marques Casara.

Casara points out that underreporting usually occurs when parents do not admit that the child works. “Families plant and harvest in a rudimentary way and become indebted and hostage to middlemen from large companies. The local authority, in turn, says that this is cultural in small properties and that children need to learn the activity.”

Maria Cláudia Falcão, ILO coordinator in Brazil, recalls that there is also underreporting of illicit activities, such as involvement in drug trafficking or sexual exploitation. Surveys such as the IBGE’s Pnad (National Household Sample Survey) hardly catch this type of problem.

“Furthermore, child labor, like slave labor, depends on the complaint to trigger the labor inspection, which in Brazil does exemplary work and is internationally recognized.”

She adds that complaints often do not increase because child labor is often seen as a matter of course. “It’s the belief that it’s better to be working than stealing. Parents themselves may not see it as harmful and that work is a value to be passed on from generation to generation.”

“It’s as if, for poor children, the only alternatives left were child labor or crime,” he says. “The only way out of this situation is for the child to work at the right age, having access to a good school.”

In a statement, the AIPC (National Association of Cocoa Processing Industries) reaffirmed that its members do not condone or tolerate work practices that use child labor. “In recent years, the sector has been making efforts to develop projects that provide information, professionalization and promote decent work in cocoa production.”

Abicab (Brazilian Association of the Chocolate, Peanut and Candy Industry) says that the associated companies are committed to acting in the best practices throughout the production chain. “Abicab, as well as its associated companies, works to promote initiatives to strengthen and sustain the cocoa chain, as well as to improve the livelihoods of producing communities.”

In large cities, however, child labor is involved in domestic activities, in street commerce or in clothing, recalls Nicolas Neves dos Santos, researcher and consultant for the Canicas Project, which prevents and combats child labor in immigrant and refugee communities in Brazil.

“The scenario is a direct result of the conditions in which this family is inserted. In the case of the sewing workshops, which are part of an outsourced chain, the family usually lives in the space where they work. be identified”

He adds that teachers can play an important role in reporting. “Signs such as drowsiness, irritability and children’s difficulty concentrating at school turn out to be important.”

According to a 2021 report by the ILO and Unicef, the pandemic is expected to worsen this scenario and 8.9 million children and adolescents in the world are at risk of falling into child labor by the end of this year.

Worldwide, the agricultural sector is responsible for 70% of children and adolescents in child labor, followed by services (20%) and industry (10%). In Brazil, most of them work in family agriculture (76%), especially in livestock and temporary crops, according to the Observatory for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor.

INSPECTION IN BRAZIL SUFFERS FROM SCRATCHING

Last year, a report by the Sheet pointed out that the Bolsonaro government started to refuse funds collected as a result of labor infractions, used to equip the government’s own inspection groups, and determined that these values ​​​​and assets were destined for the FDD (Fund for the Defense of Diffuse Rights) or the FAT (Fund for the Defense of Diffuse Rights). of Worker Support).

The decision resulted in a hollowing out of labor inspection, by changing the use of resources and equipment — such as trucks used by labor inspectors.

The last competition for tax auditors took place in 2013. According to Sinait (National Union of Labor Tax Auditors), the need for a new competition is great, as the current staff (of just over 2,000 employees) is the smallest in 25 years old.

“The Tax Audit staff is totally deficient, which has an impact on the inspections, both of child labor and of the apprentice quota, conceived as a policy for the prevention and eradication of child labor”, says Ana Maria Villa Real, coordinator National Action for Combating the Exploitation of Child and Adolescent Labor of the MPT (Public Ministry of Labour).

By law, teenagers from 14 years old can work only as apprentices, but there are bills in Brasília that try to reduce the minimum age for work.

For Ilan Fonseca, MPT’s labor attorney in Bahia, there are two distinct realities. The first is when the child works together with the family and the other, more serious, is when the employer hires the child to receive between half and a quarter of the remuneration.

He remembers an action taken on a beach in Bahia, in which children sold coconuts to tourists, claiming they needed to help their family. An investigation pointed out, however, that it was an explorer who instructed dozens of children to act that way.

From 2013 to 2018, the budget for labor inspections and combating slave labor was, on average, R$55.6 million per year. As of 2019, this average dropped to BRL 29.3 million.

One of the main reporting channels is Dial 100, an emergency telephone for complaints of human rights violations, with the main occurrences being domestic child labor (32%) and child labor on the streets and garbage collection (18%).

When asked about the loss of employees and resources and about the measures taken to inspect child labor, the Ministry of Labor had not commented until the publication of this report.

How was the study done?

The example used by the researchers is that of cocoa plantations in Côte d’Ivoire, which pointed out that 45.5% of the children questioned said that they worked, while only 16.2% of the adults reported that the children worked.

How was the comparison made?

To verify which side gave answers closer to reality, the researchers used data from the certifier Enveritas, an NGO that tracks crops using daily satellite images. Through photos, the NGO was able to identify the harvest period in the crops and conduct interviews about child labor with children and adults.

What did the comparison between the answers point out?

With a model created by them, based on data from the WDI (World Development Indicators), in the case of Brazil, the percentage of children aged 7 to 14 in this situation, 2.5% in 2015, would actually be 19, 15%. In terms of number of people, this percentage would jump from 738.6 thousand to 5.66 million. The data have a 95% confidence interval, that is, the number of children can vary between 4.639 million and 6.677 million.