3
from legislation.
When they do not, children often lie about their age, and this is impossible to verify where birth certificates are practically non-existent. Work in these
small factories is often light and includes such jobs as
packaging, pasting and labelling, but children are par- ticularly useful where manual dexterity and a capacity for maintaining a monotonous pace are needed, rather than strength or responsibility. In India, for example, such work includes filling boxes in match factories, winding in textile factories,
stitching in clothing factories, hand wrapping in soap fac- tories and particularly cleaning, cutting and rolling in
cigarette factories.
In cities and towns throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East many children work in small workshops,
cottage industries or handicraft undertakings. This work includes weaving, spinning, sewing,embroidery, metal work, leather work, woodwork, making pottery and carpets, clothing, shoes, toys, buttons, baskets and fireworks. Sometimes these children are working for their parents and learning a family trade. This work, however, is often dangerous and safety precautions are negligible. Lighting, ventilation and sanitary conditions are generally poor, and inadequate inspection services make abuses easy to get away with. Children may be brought to the workshops by their parents and work as "helpers" being paid by adult employees rather than by the proprietor. Since the employees are paid by results, the payment and condition of work of their child "helpers" is their responsibility, and cannot be controlled.
This pattern is especially common in the carpet and embroidery industries in North Africa and the Middle East, where the bulk of production comes from small private work- shops and from home work. Conditions in such workshops are generally extremely poor and employment of very young girls is normal. Work at home is handed out by middlemen with no responsibilities as employers, and done by women and their children; the girls are often extremely young, and the work subject to no controls.