(AP Photo / Saurabh Das)
No child should have to live in slavery.
Every year on June 12th the International Labor Organization (ILO) recognizes World Day Against Child Labor. The day highlights the plight of an estimated 246 million children worldwide—ages 5 to 17—that are employed in child labor. Dispossessed of the opportunity to an education, access to health, recreation and fundamental human rights, the hundreds of million of children forced to work are oftentimes subject to physical, psychological and sexual violence. Moreover, children who work are frequently exposed to hazardous and abusive working conditions with little or no economic remuneration. Many are victims of illicit work such as sexual trafficking, participation in armed conflict, or forced slave labor in dangerous environments.
To spread global awareness of this urgent issue that destroys the lives of our world’s youth, the World Day Against Child Labor brings together governments, policy makers, worker and employer organizations, social media, and millions of people around the world to advocate an end to child labor. Only through legislative reforms and the application of politics in developing and developed nations around the world will the complete eradication of infantile labor become a reality. Accordingly, decent working conditions and a legal minimum age must become instituted and implemented.
Cultural patterns, social roles and gender stereotypes within the context of extreme poverty sometimes compel families to believe that the benefits of an education are inconsequential, as children are regarded as a source of income. These conditions prevent some children from poor and rural households from having the opportunity to attend school. They are instead constrained by poor working conditions, often seperated from their families, and concealed from public view.
Many strides to reach the second Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targeted for 2015—to achieve universal enrollment and completion of primary education for boys and girls everywhere—still exist. As the 2012 MDG Report highlights, in 2010, 61 million children of primary school age were out of school. Furthermore, 120 million young people ages 14 to 24 remain illiterate.
The astronomical number of child workers certainly influences the high proportion of uneducated children worldwide. Countries with a low primary completion rate face several challenges to close their education gap.Thus, a political commitment to invest in education is necessary, and must be made.
by Leticia Pfeffer for the Global Poverty Project