The law prohibits employees under 18 from working in unhealthy, dangerous, and arduous conditions; from long hours that impede school attendance; at night; or in settings where their physical, moral, or social well-being is adversely affected53.
However, we see how the situation is quite different. Many working children are supposed to have a trainee contract, but the reality is that most of the time the work is not done under the contract and the children are under 14.
Children in Brazil are engaged in the worst forms of child labor, including hazardous activities in agriculture and street work. Agriculture is the sector in which most children are employed, followed by the services sector. Recent studies show that many children are also employed in domestic work. According to a 2013 report, more than 258,000 children of ages 10 to 17, work in the domestic service in third-party homes.
Depending on which region we study, we find different types of child labor. For example, in the Amazonas it was found that child commercial exploitation is related to labor exploitation, but in the Northeast area it is related to tourism, as this is an area where tourism is a major economic activity. We see that black males are most subject to labor exploitation.
In tourist areas there are many children working in unrecognized work, such as shoe shining, street vending and begging. The number of children working in these jobs is unknown; it is not reflected in the statistics so we cannot know for certain how many children are exploited. What we see is that a lot of child exploitation is related to tourism. Numerous studies from the ILO show that the most important cities with the worst rates of child labor are Goiás, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Maranhao and Paraiba.
We have reviewed the most recent data in the IGBE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and saw that data on child labor changed54, but because this data is not testable with the data used previously, the older figures are still used. However, there is room for consultation55. As already explained throughout this dossier, one of the main factors that triggers the human rights violations related to tourism is poverty. The region most affected is the Northeast, as it is the most popular tourist destination and poorest region in the country