Defining the Intolerable

This article explores some of the unresolved tensions between `universalistic' and `relativistic' approaches in the establishment of standards and strategies designed to prevent or overcome the abuse of children's capacity to work. Global standards (on children's rights, on unacceptable or intolerable forms of children's work, etc.) require universal notions of (ideal, normal or `tolerable') childhood, while cultural relativism stresses the idea that notions of childhood are themselves socially constructed and therefore specific to time, place, nation and culture. These tensions are discussed in the context of current discussions on the ILO's proposed new international convention on the `prohibition and immediate elimination of the worst forms of child labour'.