Canada has ratified an international agreement to reduce child labour around the world. The International Labour Organization’s Minimum Age Convention, 1973, requires participating countries to ban employment of children under 15 years old. It also prohibits hazardous work for those under 18 unless certain conditions are set.
‘Young people…should be at school’
“It’s basically saying that we see the value of young people and that they should be at school, that they should not be in the workforce,” said Canada’s labour minister, MaryAnn Mihychuk to Canadian Press before signing the treaty.
Mihychuk hopes to increase her department’s budget to try to curtail the use of child labour among Canada’s trading partners. She acknowledges that domestic businesses have applied pressure to make sure competitors don’t have an economic advantage by using cheap child labour.
Canadian family farms exempt
A statement from the labour department reassured local interests that the treaty is not expected to “negatively impact” Canadian businesses and operations such as family farms, or part-time work such as babysitting, camp counselling or other work that is commonly offered to adolescents in Canada.
The convention takes effect June 2017.
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