June 12, corresponding to June 22 in the Iranian calendar, is World Day Against Child Labor. This day was introduced in 2002 by the International Labour Organization. There has never been an exact count of child laborers worldwide, as most governments, particularly in backward capitalist countries, are unwilling to provide accurate statistics in this area. According to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, approximately 215 million children aged 5 to 17 were engaged in professional labor, with or without wages, working more than 40 hours a week in 2012.
In Iran, official statistics indicate about 3 million child laborers. However, unofficial estimates suggest this number could be as high as 7 million. Although these figures cannot fully reflect the magnitude of this human tragedy, even the lowest numbers are a stain on the capitalist system and a painful wound on humanity’s conscience.
Any professional work is harmful to children, but some jobs are also dangerous. Of the approximate 215 million child laborers reported by UNICEF, 115 million are engaged in hazardous work. The range of professional labor for children is as vast as that for adults, including domestic work, farming, industry, trade, mining, and service work. In all these areas, children are exploited like slaves.
The most dangerous forms of child labor involve military work, criminal activities, and sex tourism. The latest forms of exploitative work include digital industries, computer games, pornography, and entertainment films. All types of capitalists, from small shopkeepers to giant corporations, exploit the cheap and obedient labor of child boys and girls. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), approximately 22,000 children die each year while working for exploiters.
Child labor is more prevalent in backward capitalist countries than in developed industrial nations, where workers and progressive people have forced a degree of humanity on the capitalists and their governments. One of the regions where child laborers face the most exploitation and humiliation is occupied Palestine. These children, particularly in Gaza, now face death from bombings, shelling, disease, and severe hunger.
In developed countries like the United States, child laborers are often the children of immigrants and workers who have not yet received residency or official work permits. Displacement caused by natural disasters and wars, alongside increasing poverty and unemployment, has significantly contributed to the rise in child labor.
In Iran, child laborers face slave-like conditions. The plight of child laborers under the Islamic Republic has become a disaster. In Iran, most of these children, aged between five and fifteen, come from working-class families. Due to their parents’ poverty and unemployment, they are forced to work hard and arduous jobs instead of attending school and enjoying conditions favorable to their growth and development, which is the natural right of every child. Their youthful lives wither under the burden of labor.
They must work day and night in carpet weaving, small workshops, and on the streets and squares of cities, cleaning car windows, selling cigarettes, tissues, chewing gum, and more, to earn money to feed themselves or even search for food in the garbage. Child laborers, including Afghan immigrants, are employed in various dangerous jobs, including waste scavenging by the waste mafia in major cities.
The tragic list of child suffering includes child addiction, child marriage, child abuse, compulsory hijab for young girls, execution and imprisonment of parents with young children, leaving children orphaned, corporal punishment in schools, forcing children into compulsory religious ceremonies, child soldiers, and more. This list of tragedies has no end.
Working is not a conscious choice for child laborers. These children, driven from education and play due to poverty and forced into the ruthless labor market, face such a bitter fate because of the needs of capital. Capitalists and their political representatives in many countries have reduced state support for children, forcing them to accept exploitation for a meager wage.
The Islamic Republic appears to have accepted international conventions on prohibiting child labor. However, this acceptance is merely formal and for show. In practice, they do not adhere to these laws and do not heed criticisms from international authorities. Therefore, to ensure the rights of child laborers, the silent victims of the capitalist system, a different path must be taken. This path involves uniting and fighting against the regime and the exploitative and oppressive relationships that ruthlessly force defenseless children into labor and deprive them of their basic human rights.
