Reasons for Children to Work at a Factory

• 59 % of auditors think the top reason for a child to work at a factory is poverty

We are aware that preventing child labor is an extremely complicated and difficult task for all parties involved, even though we expect most prevention work to take place at the factory level. Understanding the diverse root causes of child labor in different countries / communities will help us develop more targeted initiatives to address the issue. Therefore, we tried to look at the reasons for a child to work at a factory from auditors’ point of view.

As shown in Figure 11, auditor’ s views on the top reasons for a child to work at a factory differ significantly between China and other countries in the region. The majority of auditors in China believe children end up working at the factories because they are unwilling to continue high school after the 9-year compulsory education. Auditors in other countries, however, think that poverty and the family’ s dependence on the child’ s income are the dominant reasons for child labor.

Figure 11:

“ Some child laborers were only a few months short of 16 and have completed compulsory education. They decided not to further pursue education and preferred to work.”- An auditor from China.

11 Best Response: Auditors’ Insights on Child Labor in Asia