The historic and social importance of childhood for the construction of the right to health at work

Abstract

The recognition of child labor as a social problem that compromises the health and the education of children begins to emerge legally at the end of the eighteenth century and continues throughout the nineteenth century establishing legal regulations to prevent or mitigate its continuity. The construction of a legal framework for child protection is historically and closely linked to the process of regulation and prohibition of child labor in industrialized societies. This process culminates in the configuration of a conception of childhood that is separate from the world of work, but, contradictorily, linked to it. This text aims to establish a relationship between the evolution of the protective standard of health at work and the change of conception of childhood, having as a panorama of analysis the socio-historical context of the United Kingdom in the period between 1788 and 1879, in which important Labor laws were published in order to impose rules on the employment of children. It verifies and emphasizes that the very advance of the labor norm related to health was due to the look on child labor in industries. The methodology used was the bibliographical revision on childhood, child labor and analysis of official documents mainly of the specified period. The results demonstrate the importance of childhood in changing the social contract with a focus on the work-health relationship; the transition from factory work to school work; and the evidence that children are active subjects and coproducers of social reality.