BC Council for Families

Did you know that BC has the youngest work-start age in North America? In 2003 the BC government lowered the age from 16 to 12. And in the subsequent 7 years WorkSafeBC has seen the number of child workplace injury claims increase ten fold.

These staggering findings were released in First Call's study What's Happening to Our Children?: A look at Child Work-Related Injury Claims in BC Over the Past 10 Years. Now the organization has launched a new website devoted to the issue: No Child Labour in BC. The website aims to bring awareness to BC's lax child labour laws and calls for BC's Minister of Labour to take action and bring the province’s laws into compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Labour Organization’s conventions on child labour.

Currently the provincial Employment Standards Act allows children aged 12 and up to work at virtually any worksite and at any time of day. The only prerequisite is written permission from one parent or guardian, which as the No Child Labour site points out, “effectively places parents in charge of assessing work-site safety.”

To add your voice to the call to end child labour, check out nochildlabour.org.
Youth can submit their stories of work experiences HERE.