KEY POINTS:
Children who work need the same level of protection as adult workers doing similar tasks, says the Catholic social justice agency Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand.
Caritas research and advocacy officer Lisa Beech said that for many working children similar protection was not available.
The agency has published a report, "Delivering the Goods", detailing the findings of a survey on children delivering circulars and newspapers to household letterboxes.
It included interviews with 30 children aged 10 to 16 doing delivery work, as a follow-up to a wider 2003 survey of child workers.
"While many children have good working experiences and value much of their working lives, the survey showed many areas of concern," Ms Beech said, "particularly when comparing children's experience with adult postal workers delivering to the same letterboxes."
Caritas wanted to see a code of best practice for the employment of children in delivery work.
The most important step to improve children's working experiences would be to require that their employment status was that of employees rather than contractors.
"There was a very marked difference between children employed directly as employees and those who had the status of self-employed contractors."
Child employees received holiday and sick pay, age-appropriate relief workers, clothing and bike allowances, the most effective information and oversight of health and safety conditions.
- NZPA
