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and the practical provisions adopted by countries should be conducted. At the practical level, it was as important for a country to ensure that it had an efficient labour inspection system and adequate training possibilities as it was for it to sign international conventions. The proposed study could be useful only if it focused its attention strictly on sociological and cultural realities and avoided generalizations. If, for example, in a number of countries the child was encouraged by the family to leave school early in order to become an apprentice, that attitude might be dictated by common sense in so far as the continuation of schooling might prove to be a dead end for the child. Thus the minimum standards adopted with regard to age, wages, vocational training and working conditions should be viewed in the context of the actual situation in each country. Such a study could not be undertaken by the Sub-Commission without the collaboration of the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Children's Find and Governments.
25. Mr. WHITAKER endorsed the remarks made by Mr. Boudhiba with regard to the need for realism. Child labour was not necessarily bad; on the contrary, it could provide children with an opportunity of displaying self-reliance and confidence. The question before the Sub-Commission was the exploitation of child labour by an employer who sought to evade safety regulations or to pay the lowest possible wages, as could happen, for example, in southern Europe. In another region of the world, apartheid had particularly harsh effects on children: in countries subjected to that régime, businessmen scoured rural regions in search of children from poor families who would work for them as servants. Lastly, emphasis should be placed on the fact that child labour should not deprive children of the means of education available to them.
26. In the developing countries in particular, standards were different for men, on the one hand, and for children and women, on the other; the latter frequently performed arduous work (carrying water for long distances, for example) and insufficient statistics were available to give an exact idea of working conditions. In order to gain a better understanding of the situation, reference should be made to the specific examples cited by United Nations bodies and intergovernmental or non-governmental organizations. The study by OXFAM on child prostitution in Brazil
(E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.2/27, annex II) showed that in that country some 50,000 children were victims of exploitation, prostitution and all kinds of abuse. The study threw light on the sorry situation of young girls from poor rural families who were engaged as maids and worked in very harsh conditions which exposed them to all kinds of risks. Most of them ended up in brothels where they were shamefully exploited. Although prostitution was illegal in Brazil, the law was frequently not respected and the profits made by procurers were all the larger. The Anti-Slavery Society cited data which indicated that in Hong Kong 36,000 children aged between 10 and 14 were employed, mostly in small factories where safety conditions were inadequate and the children earned very low wages; the prevailing economic and social conditions made it impossible to ensure the strict implementation of the relevant legislation. In Colombia too, large numbers of children worked in conditions contrary to the laws which protected them and sometimes received no wages at all. In India, which had the largest child labour force in the world some 16 million children aged between 5 and 14 worked in rural and urban areas, despite the provisions of article 24 of the Indian Constitution which stipulated that no child below the age of 14 should be employed in any factory or mine or be engaged in any other hazardous employment, and
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