The Invisible Girls:
The ILO’s refusal to count labour performed by child wives
The International Labour Organization is neglecting millions of girls around the world by refusing to
count married girls as child labourers. Child wives are denied education, forced to work long hours,
trapped under the control of older men, subjected to physical and psychological abuse, and raped
repeatedly. It is difficult to imagine a worse form of child labour. Yet these girls are not recognized or
protected by the ILO.
AIDS-Free World has been in contact with the ILO since September, urging a change in its policy. Their
responses have been alarming and unsatisfactory, and we have tried to understand their position to no
avail. We remain convinced that they are vastly underreporting the number of girls subjected to child
labour because they are overlooking child wives.
The Invisible Girls
AIDS-Free World began looking more closely at child marriage because girls forced into marriage
prematurely are at especially high risk of contracting HIV from their older, more sexually experienced
husbands - and HIV now affects adolescent girls and young women more than any other group. We
assumed that the United Nations would be strenuously addressing the problem of child marriage from
every angle, and that every relevant UN agency would be involved in ending this widespread oppression
of girls. Given the harsh and abusive daily reality of child marriage for girls, it seemed obvious to us that
the work required of under-aged wives would count as a worst form of child labour.
Yet when we examined the ILO’s statistics on child labour, we were struck by an odd trend: From ages 5 to
11, the number of boys and girls engaged in child labour is fairly equal. At 12 to 14, boys involved in child
labour outnumber girls by about 2.2 million. And at 15 to 17, boys account for 81 per cent of all child
labourers, outnumbering girls by 29.8 million. The ILO characterizes the lower percentage of girls in child
labour as good news, but we were stumped. Was this dramatic shift merely a product of gender
differences in the types of work that boys and girls were being asked to perform? Could it be that when
young girls become teenagers, their societies suddenly protect them from child labour?
And then we realized the surprising truth: the ratio of boys to girls is off because the ILO is not counting
child wives as child labourers.
These girls are being forced into illegal marriages and moved into the homes of their illegal spouses,
where they are expected to do the adult work of managing entire households, and where they are
repeatedly raped. The work they perform constitutes child labour by all ILO measurements. The forced
nature of their work, along with the regular sexual abuse that under-aged wives suffer, means that their
labor constitutes a “worst form of child labour” under ILO Convention 182.
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We reached out to the ILO and set out the case. We assumed that the ILO would see that their current
definitions already identify this type of work as child labour, and that inadvertently, an incorrect
interpretation had led to vast under-reporting of girls in child labour statistics over the years. The ILO’s
initial response was confusing; their subsequent responses were deeply alarming.
Why does the ILO’s stance on child marriage matter?
Before examining the ILO’s position on this issue, it’s worth considering why it matters. The fact is, the
ILO sets the world’s standards for labour rights and for eliminating child labour.
When the ILO excludes child marriage as a form of child labour, they send a message to governments,
agencies, and individuals around the world that the status quo is acceptable. They send the message that
married children are simply doing household chores, so it is acceptable for them to work long hours, be
confined to their husbands’ homes, and deprived of education. The ILO’s stance legitimizes these illegal
arrangements and diminishes the brutal reality of child marriage.
Without formal recognition from the ILO, many societies that have traditionally devalued girls and women
will continue to view child marriage as something that is unfortunate only because it is a rite of passage
that happens too soon for some females. That perception is badly outdated: modern societies worldwide
now recognize that the practice must be abolished, as it completely unravels girls’ lives and violates their
most fundamental human rights.
The exclusion of married girls also means that millions of girls are rendered invisible in ILO reports on
progress to end child labour. The ILO’s global estimates currently convey to the world a false sense that
child labour among girls is not as significant a problem as child labour among boys. The statistics
erroneously claim that as children age, there are substantially more boys than girls engaged in any form of
child labour, and that a much higher number of older boys than older girls are subjected to the worst
forms of child labour. When child marriage is taken into account, neither of these claims remains true.
The ILO’s Response
The response we received from the ILO could best be described as confounding. They stated that the work
being performed by these young girls was not economic activity, and therefore did not qualify under the
terms of the ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour. But they did not explain why. Our legal
team reviewed all the relevant ILO conventions, rules, statistical definitions, and papers, and realized how
they’d drawn their faulty conclusion: The ILO categorizes domestic work as “economic activity” when it is
performed in a third-party household, but not when it is performed in one’s own household. Therefore,
the ILO has been justifying its practice of ignoring the child labour of young married girls by reasoning,
illogically and on faulty legal grounds, that the domestic work performed by child wives is labour
performed in their own households.
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To classify child wives as working “in their own households” ignores the obvious: these girls are in new
homes solely because of an illegal act. A child is too young to consent to marriage. Every child wife is the
victim of a crime. To maintain that the illegal act of child marriage validly transfers a girl’s household
from the home of her family to the home of her “spouse” legitimizes the illegal act in an unprecedented
manner. It is akin to arguing that the brothel where a trafficked woman is forcibly confined is now her
legitimate household, simply because the criminal who abducted her said so.
The ILO’s position dangerously legitimizes child marriage by respecting millions of invalid written and
verbal marriage contracts that claim to transfer children’s households. Our requests for an alternative
explanation went unheeded. So we admonished them, publicly, for taking this stance.
It was controversial to suggest that the ILO legitimizes child marriage, but our appeals to logic and reason
were being dismissed, and we needed a way to push the ILO to see the terrible repercussions of its policy.
They responded quickly, castigating us for the headline, but never explaining why we were wrong. We
were simply told that there are definitions and procedures that must be followed that we clearly do not
understand – but they didn’t go on to explain them. We kept pushing, and finally had a phone call with one
of their top experts. On the call, the expert refused to clarify the fundamental third-party-household
versus own-household question, and instead compounded the illogic. She assured us that the ILO does
indeed gather and report statistics on children engaged in forced labour -- but then stated that children’s
marital status is not considered relevant in that data collection.
This response demonstrated one of two things – either the ILO has a fundamental misunderstanding of
the facts, or it stubbornly refuses to admit an error. The facts could not be simpler. A child cannot consent
to marriage; this means that each and every domestic service performed within a child marriage is forced.
Any work done by a child wife must be defined as forced labour by virtue of the condition under
which it’s performed: a forced marriage. Failing to take into account the marital status of a child
engaged in work within a household ignores the defining factor that characterizes that work as “forced”.
Trying to establish whether a child within a household is engaged in child labour without asking about
marital status—without determining whether the child’s residence and status in that household is or is
not legal—is akin to trying to determine whether wages are fair without examining the nature of the work
being done.
We raised this point with the ILO again, but did not get a response that addressed this fundamental
concern. Instead, we were sent a formal letter stating that the ILO sees no need to continue the discussion
if we continue to misrepresent their views.
Our intention was never to misrepresent the ILO’s views. We responded with great care, clearly laying out
our own arguments, then methodically stating our understanding of the ILO’s position, point by numbered
point, and asking the ILO to indicate which points we had not properly understood. That letter was sent
on December 12th. We have not received a response.
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Why does this matter? How will this help girls?
What will it accomplish if the ILO agrees to start counting child wives as child labourers? How will this
help girls worldwide?

It will provide an accurate global representation of the intolerable and inhumane labour situations
facing millions of girls around the world, and it will help to bring these girls out of the shadows.

It will reframe the global conversation about child marriage and begin to end the social
sanctioning of child marriage. To call the practice “marriage” gives it unwarranted legitimacy;
calling it “a worst form of child labour” will remove that legitimacy.

It will signify that the ILO is finally acknowledging, counting, and properly addressing a practice
that destroys the health of girls, robs them of sexual and reproductive choices, puts them at
lifelong high risk of sexually transmitted infections, and exponentially increases their chances of
dying in childbirth. It will help to address the frighteningly high rates of HIV amongst adolescent
girls by highlighting under-aged marriage as a serious but much-ignored risk factor.

It will bring the effectiveness, attention, and significant resources of ILO to this problem. The ILO’s
International Programme to End Child Labour is the largest programme of its kind globally, with
operations in 88 countries.

It will ensure that the 185 member countries of the ILO provide better and more accurate data on
child labour and take stronger action to protect girls’ rights.
By recognizing the phenomenon of child ‘marriage’ as child labour, the ILO, together with labour, can take
an active role in ending it.
What can labour unions do?
AIDS-Free World has now been appealing to and applying pressure on the ILO since September 2014
through repeated letters to the Director-General and the senior ILO staff members he designates; through
a press release calling attention to the problem; and through outreach to international organizations and
other UN bodies already working on child labour and on child marriage. We are absolutely committed to
continuing our global advocacy on this issue, and know without a doubt that having the support of
organized labour will be crucial in convincing the ILO to change their policies for the better. We believe
that letters from individual trade unionists all over the world would have an incredibly powerful influence
on the ILO, and would convince them that correcting their egregious mistake is the right action to take.
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