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The use of children in industry or business, especially when illegal or considered inhumane, that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.

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Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. The participation of children or adolescents above the minimum age for admission to employment in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children's development and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life.

The term "child labour" is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that:

is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and/or

interferes with their schooling by: depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

Whether or not particular forms of "work" can be called "child labour" depends on the child's age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries.

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Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. The participation of children or adolescents above the minimum age for admission to employment in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive.

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Child labor is most prominent in developing countries such as Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. But child labour today is not restricted to developing countries. There are working children found in developed industrialised countries like Turkey and the Ukraine.

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Child Labor

Growing up in the United States, getting your first part-time job is an important rite of passage. It's exciting, as you get a little money, a little independence, and a sense of responsibility. For most people, this first opportunity comes between the ages of 14 and 16 and is balanced around school and social activities. But imagine if by the age of 14, you had already been a full-time laborer for almost a decade. No school, no social time, just physical and often dangerous work. Child labor is something that the global community is becoming actively more opposed to. More and more, a childhood is being seen less as a privilege and more of a fundamental human right.

Child Labor in Developing Countries

The question that immediately arises in a discussion on child labor is this: how big of a problem is this? Unfortunately, it is a rather large one. Recent statistics estimate that roughly 210 million children between ages 5-14 are currently working nearly full time. That's about 18% of the world's children. Child labor generally involves agricultural or industrial work, often putting young children in very dangerous working conditions. What's even more concerning is that a large number of these children are employed in some sort of sex trade, which often involves human trafficking.

So, child labor is a problem, but what's notable is where these children are living. About 60% of them are in Asia, with about 23% in sub-Saharan Africa. What this means is that nearly all child laborers live in a developing country. A developing country is one which is primarily agricultural, but is working to establish an industrial economy that can be competitive in global markets. It's a loose term, one that is contested by many academics, but it can be occasionally useful in comparing world economies. It is in these nations that we see the greatest problems with child labor.

Economic Reasons for Child Labor in Developing Countries

The association between status as a developing country and rates of child labor is no coincidence. There are many reasons for this; we'll start with some economic factors. The transition into an industrial economy focused on international markets is not exactly an easy one, and the result in many nations has been widespread poverty and unemployment. In nations where economic opportunities are low, many families have come to rely on the income earned by their children. For these families, sending children to work may be a matter of survival.

Part of this problem comes from the total costs of industrializing and entering into global markets. The governments of developing nations do not always have well-established roles in the international economy, which means they do not have a lot of extra money. Most developing nations can only industrialize and modernize with the help of extensive loans from foreign governments or private corporations. This means that even after the nation has built up their new economy, they are deeply in debt. Rather than putting money into their own economy to stimulate jobs or into social welfare programs to combat the poverty that leads to child labor, all the nation's resources have to go toward paying off their debt.

Cultural Reasons for Child Labor

Unfortunately, economic factors are not the only ones that may encourage the continuing reliance on child labor. In most nations where child labor exists, it has existed for quite some time and therefore is an established part of a national culture. We tend to forget this, but when the United States and Great Britain first tried to abolish child labor, both nations faced uphill battles against populations who saw child labor as an important part of growing up. It was part of our culture, and the same issue is being faced in developing nations today.

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child labor in developing countries | study.com

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Child Labor in Developing Countries | Study.com

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Growing up in the United States, getting your first part-time job is an important rite of passage. It's exciting, as you get a little money, a little independence, and a sense of responsibility. For most people, this first opportunity comes between the ages of 14 and 16 and is balanced around school and social activities.

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It was reported that out of 197 countries Eritrea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Yemen as the 10 places where child labor is most prevalent.

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Story highlights

Where in the world are children toiling dangerous and dirty conditions, missing out on education and other basic rights?

A new report by risk analysis firm Maplecroft, which ranks 197 countries, identifies Eritrea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Yemen as the 10 places where child labor is most prevalent.

Countries with high poverty rates fare badly in the index due to the need for children to supplement their family income, the report said, but economically important countries like China, India, Russia and Brazil were also found to have extreme risks because child labor laws are often poorly enforced.

READ: Fewer child laborers still too many

Trafficking of children into forced labor or sexual exploitation remains a big problem, the report added.

Despite its fast-growing economy, China has witnessed a substantial increase in child labor risks over the past year, ranking 20th compared with 53rd a year earlier.

The report said that unofficial estimates suggested that 100,000 children are employed in the country's manufacturing sector.

CNN Freedom Project

"The use of vocational work and study schemes, along with the continued use of children in factories, present significant supply chain risks to companies even in the more economically developed provinces," the report said.

Last year, electronics supplier Foxconn admitted that interns as young as 14 worked at one of its Chinese plants.

However, the report pointed to minor improvements in the risk of child labor, with South America now ranked as "high risk" rather than "extreme risk."

In September, the International Labor Organization estimated that the rate of five to 17 year olds engaged in child labor had decreased to 10.6% in 2012 from 13.6% in 2008. The number of children involved in the worst forms of child labor has decreased to 85 million from 115 million during this time.

The company compiles the ranking by evaluating the frequency and severity of reported child labor incidents, as well as tracking how governments prevent child labor and ensure perpetrators are held accountable.

The index has been developed to help companies understand the risks of children being employed in their supply chains.

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The 10 worst countries for child labor | CNN

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Where in the world are children toiling dangerous and dirty conditions, missing out on education and other basic rights? A new report by risk analysis firm Maplecroft, which ranks 197 countries, identifies Eritrea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Yemen as the 10 places where child labor is most prevalent.

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In developing countries children often work in extremely dangerous and hazardous conditions in the manufacturing and agricultural work environments. For these children, crushing accidents, amputations, and fractures are all commen work-related injuries.  Working children are not only at risk of physical injury, but are vulnerable to workplace toxins and chemical hazards as well. Child labor not only negatively affects a child’s health, but it also negatively impacts his/her ability to receive schooling and perform academically.

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"In recent decades some extreme forms of violence against children, including sexual exploitation and trafficking, female genital mutilation (FGM), the worst forms of child labour and the impact of armed conflict, have provoked international outcry and achieved a consensus of condemnation, although no rapid remedy. But in addition to these extreme forms of violence, many children are routinely exposed to physical, sexual and psychological violence in their homes and schools, in care and justice systems, in places of work and in their communities. All of this has devastating consequences for their health and well-being now and in the future."(1)

Child Abuse

"Child abuse is not simply any harm that befalls children. Children throughout the world suffer from a multitude of harms- malnutrition, starvation, infectious disease, congenital defects, abandonment, economic exploitation, the violence of warfare, to name a few. Not all harm that befalls children is child abuse." (2) Child abuse is harm resulting from intentional human action. The most fundamental attribute of child abuse is that it is harmful to the child and detrimental to his/her well-being. There is also an important difference between unintentional and intentional harm. "It has been observed that what is so destructive about child abuse and neglect (as opposed to other forms of injury) is that the betrayal of the child's trust leads to defective socialization."(3) Child abuse is correlated with unemployment and poverty. "Rates of abuse and neglect can be thought of as indicators of the quality of life for families, and maltreatment can be viewed as a symptom, rather than a cause, of difficulties in family and individual functioning."(4) Thus, overall rates of child abuse are higher in regions characterized by a higher proportion of low-income families and in regions with unusually high rates of unemployment.

There are four main categories of child abuse: physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse.(5)

Physical Abuse

Studies from countries around the world suggest that a large number of children suffer physical punishment in their homes,(6) and it is estimated that up to 1 billion children aged 2-17 years have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence or neglect during the past year.(7) Physical abuse can range from minor bruises to severe fractures or death as a result of punching, beating, hitting, shaking, or otherwise harming a child. (8)

Emotional Abuse and Neglect

Emotional abuse is behavior that impairs a child's emotional development or sense of self-esteem. It may include threats, constant criticism, as well as withholding love, support, or guidance. Neglect is a pattern of failing to provide for a child's basic physical and emotional needs. Neglect is a very common type of child abuse, and according to Child Welfare Information Gateway, more children suffer from neglect than from physical and sexual abuse combined. (9)

Sexual Abuse and Child Prostitution

Sexual abuse of a child is any sexual act between an adult and a child which may include sexual intercourse, incest, rape, oral sex, sodomy, inappropriate touching, or kissing. "An overview of studies in 21 countries (mostly developed) found that 7-36% of women and 3-29% of men reported sexual victimization during childhood, and the majority of studies found girls to be abused at 1.5-3 times the rate for males. Most of the abuse occurred within the family circle." (10)

Child prostitution "involves offering the sexual services of a child or inducing a child to perform sexual acts for a form of compensation, financial or otherwise." (11) Worldwide, approximately 1 million children are forced into prostitution every year, and it is estimated that the total number of child prostitutes is as high as 10 million. "Generally children do not commit child prostitution but the adults who engage in prostitution or offer a child's sexual services to others force them. It is estimated that at least 1 million girls worldwide are lured or forced into this scandalous form of child exploitation. Child prostitution is more frequent in developing countries such as Brazil and Thailand where more than 200,000 children are exploited."(12) Child prostitution is not only a cause of death and high morbidity for millions of children, but also a gross violation of their rights. Prostitution negatively affects children's sexual health, causes psychological harm, and puts them at risk for enduring increased violence.

Sexual Health: Child prostitutes are at a high risk of contracting HIV. HIV infection rates in prostituted children range from 5% in Vietnam to 17% in Thailand. One study reports that 50-90% of children rescued from brothels in Southeast Asia are infected with HIV. Prostituted children are also at a high risk of acquiring other STDs. For example, one study found that child prostitutes have STD rates in Cambodia of 36% and in China of 78%, compared to the 5% yearly incidence of STDs in adolescents worldwide.(13)

Psychological Harm: Child prostitution also causes serious long-term psychological harm, including anxiety, depression, and behavioral disorders. Prostituted children are at a high risk of suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder. A study conducted in the U.S. found that 41% of pregnant prostituted adolescents reported having seriously considered or attempted suicide within the past year.(14)

Violence: Prostituted children are at a high risk of enduring injuries and violence. The children may be physically and emotionally abused into submission, while girls may be beaten to induce miscarriages. A study of 475 child prostitutes in five countries found that 73% of participants had been physically assaulted while working as a sex worker, and 62% reported having been raped. (15)

Child Labor

Child labor is a problem worldwide, but it particularly affects children in developing countries. Child labor is characterized by full-time work at too early of an age, and too many hours spent working. The work often exerts undue physical, social, or psychological stress, hampers access to education, and may be detrimental to social and psychological development. The ILO's Statistical Information and Monitoring Program on Child Labor recently estimated that 211 million children, or 18 % of children aged 5-14, are economically active worldwide. 60% of these working children live in Asia, and 23% live in sub-Saharan Africa. Most economically active children are employed in agriculture. For example, in Nepal, 85% of economically active children are in agriculture. In Cambodia, the rate is 73% while in Morocco it is 84%.(16)

The type of child labor is the most important determinant of the incidence of work-related injuries. An estimated 6 million work-related injuries occur among children annually, which results in 2.5 million disabilities and 32,000 fatalities every year. In developing countries, children often work under hazardous conditions in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. For these children, crushing accidents, amputations, and fractures account for 10% of all work-related injuries. Working children are not only at risk of physical injury, but are vulnerable to workplace toxins and chemical hazards as well.(17) Specific hazards vary according to the industry type. Child workers may be exposed to high temperatures, and a high risk of accidents caused by cuts and burns if they work in the brassware and glass-bangle industry. Children who work in matches and firebox shops may be exposed to chemical hazards and a risk of fire and explosion. Children who work in the carpet industry are exposed to repetitive movements, chemical hazards, inhalation of wool dust contaminated with biological agents, and inadequate working postures. Lastly, children who work in the shoe industry are often exposed to glue.(18) "Using data derived from the Global Burden of Diseases Study (GBDS), estimates of child occupational mortality rates by region were found to be comparable with adult mortality rates, indicating that the conditions in which children work are as dangerous as, or more dangerous then, those in which adults work."(19)

Child labor not only negatively affects a child's health, but it also negatively impacts his/her ability to receive schooling and perform academically. When children are forced by their families to work, they no longer have the time to attend school. Though there are a significant number of children who go to school and work, the work may negatively impact their studies. Data from 12 Latin American countries find that third and fourth graders who attend school and never conduct market or domestic work perform 28% better on mathematics tests and 19% better on language tests than children who both attend school and work.(20) Child labor is also problematic because it creates a vicious cycle. A study conducted in Egypt found that many fathers couldn't find work or were unemployed for health reasons that were a result of them having worked too long hours, in conditions that negatively impacted their health as children. For example, one man had worked in pottery factories since childhood and was blinded as a result. Thus, one of his sons was then forced at the age of 8 to provide for the family and engage in full-time work. (21)

Low income, poverty, and poor educational institutions are the driving forces behind the prevalence of child labor worldwide.(22) "Child labor exists because education systems and labor markets do not function properly, because poor households cannot insure themselves against income fluctuations, and because perverse incentives exist that create a demand for child labor."(23) Thus, many families, especially those in developing countries, need extra income or can't afford to send their children to school, so they send them to work. "Historical growth rates suggest that reducing child labor through improvements in living standards alone will take time. If a more rapid reduction in the general incidence of child labor is a policy goal, improving educational systems and providing financial incentives to poor families to send children to school may be more useful solutions to the child labor problem than punitive measures designed to prevent children from earning income." (24)

Footnotes

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Child Labor and Child Abuse in Developing Countries

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"In recent decades some extreme forms of violence against children, including sexual exploitation and trafficking, female genital mutilation (FGM), the worst forms of child labour and the impact of armed conflict, have provoked international outcry and achieved a consensus of condemnation, although no rapid remedy.

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The cycle of poverty is one of the largest contributing factors to child labor. Children are forced into dangerous, physically demanding jobs because many poor households use the bulk of their income on food, forcing parents to send or sell their children into the workforce in order to make ends meet. And this cycle continues to the next generation. Other factors include culture and tradition, market demand, poor enforcement of legislation, and barriers to education.

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Child labor affects the lives of roughly 150 million children worldwide. These children have been forced to give up school, sports, play and sometimes even their families and homes to work under dangerous, harmful and abusive conditions. Many children are engaged in paid and unpaid forms of work worldwide, but are classified as child laborers when the work is considered hazardous or the child is underage.

The cycle of poverty is one of the largest contributing factors to child labor. Children are forced into dangerous, physically demanding jobs because many poor households use the bulk of their income on food, forcing parents to send or sell their children into the workforce in order to make ends meet. Other factors include culture and tradition, market demand, poor enforcement of legislation, and barriers to education.

Today, agriculture remains one of the most prevalent sectors of child labor, accounting for 59 percent of child laborers worldwide. Other common areas include mining, manufacturing, domestic service and construction.

Fast Facts

Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest proportion of child laborers.

In the world's poorest countries, nearly one in four children are engaged in work that is harmful to their health.

Youth aged 15 to 17 in hazardous work account for 28% of the overall group of children in child labor.

POLICY AND EDUCATION KEY FACTORS IN ELIMINATION

Many products, foods and services the world relies on have a degree of involvement in child labor, making elimination a difficult task. However, the international community has identified child labor as a major setback in children's rights and national development, and made substantial progress to combat the situation. Child labor among girls has fallen by 40 percent since 2000, compared to 25 percent for boys. But there is still a great amount of work to be done to continue to reduce the incidence of child labor.

According to the United Nations, effective elimination of child labor requires policies that address recurrent poverty and the vulnerability of households to economic shocks. One of the most important policy responses to child labor is education. With little to no access to education, children are often left with no choice but to begin working in exploitative, dangerous jobs.

The elimination of child labor is not a one-step solution, but with more awareness, access to education and policies in place, the world can continue to move in the right direction.

16 million girls will never start school. Learn More

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Child labor affects the lives of roughly 150 million children worldwide. These children have been forced to give up school, sports, play and sometimes even their families and homes to work under dangerous, harmful and abusive conditions.

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Other reasons why we still have Child Labor

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Other reasons why we still have Child Labor

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The relatively low wages paid to children are often a reason why employers prefer them to adult workers. Some children work unpaid. Other than poverty there are still many reasons for why child labor is still so prevelent. One is the culture and the tradition of the countries in some countries children are just expected to work from a young age to grow up. Another reason is the high demand for children laborers. Cotton growing is still very labour intensive and so there is a demand for cheap labour. Along with the relatively low wages paid or no pay to children are often a reason why employers prefer them to adult workers. Even though there are national laws in countries around the world which state that no child under the age of 14 may work, the law is often ignored. In some of the countries concerned, laws on this are confusing or vague and not enforced.

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Child labor exists in the United States in the 21st century.  It’s also, in some cases, dangerous. Children were killed on the job in construction, retail, transportation and even manufacturing and logging. But most of them, 52 percent, died working in agriculture. About 452 children died as a result of workplace injuries between 2003 and 2016, according to the Government Accountability Office. Seventy-three of those who died were age 12 or younger.

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Child labor exists in the United States in the 21st century. It's legal and widespread, but it differs enough from the work you remember from headlines and textbooks that you may not have noticed.

It's also, in some cases, dangerous. Children were killed on the job in construction, retail, transportation and even manufacturing and logging. But most of them, 52 percent, died working in agriculture.
[2016: Working in tobacco fields can make kids sick. But they still need the money.]
A 12-year-old was cleaning drainage systems in Tennessee in March when an ATV flipped onto him. He died from his injuries. A 14-year-old boy was trapped in eight feet of feed in a silo while working with his father on a Wisconsin dairy farm in June - they both died. A 14-year-old was crushed to death by a New Holland LS170 Skidloader when attempting to move bales of hay on a dairy farm in Upstate New York in 2014. A 16-year-old construction worker in Missouri was struck and killed by a swinging crane that same year.

About 452 children died as a result of workplace injuries between 2003 and 2016, according to the Government Accountability Office. Seventy-three of those who died were age 12 or younger.

Children working in agriculture are killed at a far higher rate than their peers in other industries. Farmworkers make up less than a fifth of America's child workforce - perhaps much less - yet they suffered more deaths between 2003 and 2016 than all other child workers combined.

Young workers made up a small fraction of all those injured on the job. The government doesn't have a comprehensive measure of the child workforce, but it tracks deaths carefully.

We can piece together a picture of the nation's entire child workforce from several sources. Labor Department figures show the number of children working in the United States hit a post-recession high of 2.5 million in the summer of 2017, the most recent year for which numbers are available. We have the most data for children ages 15 to 17. They are covered by the Labor Department survey that provides data for statistics such as the unemployment rate.

The figures likely undercount child labor in agriculture, as it leaves out large populations of household workers and workers younger than 15. Most children injured on farms were younger, below age 14. Two out of three of them were injured while working on their family farm.
[Photos: 20 haunting portraits of child laborers in 1900s America]
Find1 / 2mong workers ages 15 to 17, 52 percent of those employed in the summer of 2017 were female. About 87 percent of those who died between 2003 and 2016, of all ages, were male.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Childhood Agricultural Injury Survey separately found about 524,000 children worked on farms in 2014. The survey found about 375,000 "working household children" that same year. Two-thirds of them were 14 or younger, according to the GAO's analysis.

The law includes protections for child laborers, although oversight varies. Specific states may be more strict. But for the first time since 2012, 2016 marked a rise in Labor Department investigations of child labor and in the number of violations. Most violations were found in leisure and hospitality, a large sector which includes restaurants, recreation and the performing arts.

The Labor Department allows children ages 16 and 17 to work, but it bars them from hazardous tasks such as mining coal, operating a lathe, roofing a house or handling radioactive materials.

Children ages 14 and 15 can work for limited hours in less dangerous jobs such as office work, food service and pumping gasoline.

Children ages 13 and younger are allowed in just a handful of exempt, regulated professions. Most notably, they can babysit, deliver newspapers and act in plays or movies.

But there are few restrictions to working on a family farm. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, "youths of any age may work at any time in any job on a farm owned or operated by their parents." Keep this exemption in mind when reading the standards which follow.

Children younger than 14 need a parent's permission to work on a farm. They can't work during school hours. Children younger than 12 can work only on farms so small that they're not required to pay the minimum wage.

Farmworkers 15 and younger can't operate a combine harvester or most larger tractors, use dynamite or other explosives, or perform other hazardous tasks. There are exceptions for children who have been trained on certain tasks and machinery in a program such as 4-H.
[Photos: What life is like for the teenage miners of Potosi, Bolivia]
In 2012, the Obama administration backed off an attempt to protect children in more hazardous farm occupations. Critics claimed it ignored the realities of rural life and would prevent children from doing their chores. It exempted work on the child's family farm.

Most deaths that occurred during the five most recent years for which we have data involved motor vehicles. (The same was true of workers of all ages.)

According to the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, the death rate among child workers between the ages of 15 and 17 has stayed steady or risen on farms even as it has declined in other occupations.

The center's director, Barbara Lee, has long fought for farm safety, especially for the youngest workers.

"The news reports of these deaths and traumatic injuries cross my desk every day," Lee said. "They are not 'accidents' because that word implies they are out of our control.

"The truth is that each of these traumatic events is predictable and preventable. Adults bear responsibility for putting these kids at risk."

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Analysis | 452 children died on the job in the U.S. between 2003 and 2016

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Child labor exists in the United States in the 21st century. It's legal and widespread, but it differs enough from the work you remember from headlines and textbooks that you may not have noticed. It's also, in some cases, dangerous. Children were killed on the job in construction, retail, transportation and even manufacturing and logging.

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Almost all of the child laborers in the world are based in third world countries. Most present in the developing ones as well.

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In the world's poorest countries, slightly more than 1 in 5 children are engaged in child labour

Children around the world are routinely engaged in paid and unpaid forms of work that are not harmful to them. However, they are classified as child labourers when they are either too young to work or are involved in hazardous activities that may compromise their physical, mental, social or educational development. In the least developed countries, slightly more than one in four children (ages 5 to 17) are engaged in labour that is considered detrimental to their health and development.

The issue of child labour is guided by three main international conventions: the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 138 concerning minimum age for admission to employment and Recommendation No. 146 (1973); ILO Convention No. 182 concerning the prohibition and immediate action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and Recommendation No. 190 (1999); and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These conventions frame the concept of child labour and form the basis for child labour legislation enacted by countries that are signatories.

Prevalence of child labour

In sub-Saharan Africa, slightly more than 1 in 4 children aged 5 to 17 years are engaged in child labour.

Gender disparities

In all regions, boys and girls are equally likely to be involved in child labour. However, gender disparities are often observed in the types of activities carried out, with girls far more likely to be involved in unpaid household services.

Notes on the data

Data sources

The main sources of data on child labour include the UNICEF-supported Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and the ILO-supported Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC) surveys. The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) have adopted the MICS module on child labour in its questionnaires. Many countries also produce national labour estimates and reports that often include data on child labour and/or employment among children.

Data on child labour have been collected in MICS since 2000 in more than 50 surveys through a standard module questionnaire. A standard definition of child labour was also used to calculate the prevalence of child labour across countries. In 2010, following consultations with ILO, the standard MICS questionnaire underwent a careful revision to make it consistent with currently available international standards.

The MICS module covers children 5 to 17 years old and includes questions on the type of work a child does and the number of hours he or she is engaged in it. Data are collected on both economic activities (paid or unpaid work for someone who is not a member of the household, work for a family farm or business) and domestic work (household chores such as cooking, cleaning or caring for children). The MICS child labour module also collects information on hazardous working conditions.

SIMPOC questionnaires have been developed to be used in a variety of data collection methods, including in stand-alone, household-based, child labour surveys and as a separate module in other household-based surveys. No specific operational definition of child labour is used in SIMPOC surveys across countries, but estimates are calculated on the basis of the definition used in the national legislation of individual countries. As a result, the definition of child labour that is used to calculate child labour estimates differs markedly among countries, as do the resulting estimates.

In December 2008, the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) adopted the Resolution concerning the measurement of working time. The resolution sets standards for the collection and analysis of data on child labour and calls upon all countries to develop a system of child labour statistics. The resolution also confirms that any type of work undertaken by children should be considered in the measurement of child labour, in addition to economic activities. The target populations for the resolution are children aged 5 to 17 years who, during a specified time period, were engaged in one or more of the following categories of activities: worst forms of child labour,[2] employment below the minimum age, and unpaid household services.

Main indicators

The Resolution concerning the measurement of working time sets the threshold for economic activities at 14 or more hours per week for children aged 12 to 14 years, but does not specify precise thresholds for unpaid household services due to a lack of evidence that would support such a threshold. Since then, UNICEF and ILO have both conducted data analyses to support the establishment of a threshold for the inclusion of unpaid household services in the measurement of child labour. The results of these analyses were presented at the 19th ICLS, which took place in Geneva in October 2013.[3]

UNICEF's standard indicator for child labour includes the following:

Age 5 to 11 years: At least 1 hour of economic work or 21 hours of unpaid household services per week.

Age 12 to 14 years: At least 14 hours of economic work or 21 hours of unpaid household services per week.

Age 15 to 17 years: At least 43 hours of economic work per week.

MICS module on child labour

MICS surveys has a standardized module on child labour
Download the MICS module on child labour (PDF)

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Children around the world are routinely engaged in paid and unpaid forms of work that are not harmful to them. However, they are classified as child labourers when they are either too young to work or are involved in hazardous activities that may compromise their physical, mental, social or educational development.

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152 million children worldwide are victims of child labor; 88 million are boys and 64 million are girls. Almost half of child labor victims (73 million) work in hazardous child labor; more than one-quarter of all hazardous child labor is done by children less than 12 years old (19 million).

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There are 168 million children worldwide trapped in child labor, accounting for almost 11 percent of the overall child population.

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Most child laborers begin working at a very young age, are malnourished, and work long hours in hazardous occupations; frequently they do not attend school.  Under accumulation of human capital caused by low school attendance and poor health is a serious negative consequence of child labor, representing a missed opportunity to enhance the productivity and future earnings capacity of the next generation.12 Child laborers grow up to be low-wage–earning adults; as a result, their offspring will also be compelled to work to supplement the family’s income. In this way, poverty and child labor is passed from generation to generation.

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Abstract

Objectives. Research on child labor and its effect on health has been limited. We sought to determine the impact of child labor on children's health by correlating existing health indicators with the prevalence of child labor in selected developing countries.

Methods. We analyzed the relationship between child labor (defined as the percentage of children aged 10 to14 years who were workers) and selected health indicators in 83 countries using multiple regression to determine the nature and strength of the relation. The regression included control variables such as the percentage of the population below the poverty line and the adult mortality rate.

Results. Child labor was significantly and positively related to adolescent mortality, to a population's nutrition level, and to the presence of infectious disease.

Conclusions. Longitudinal studies are required to understand the short- and long-term health effects of child labor on the individual child.

Child labor is an important global issue associated with poverty, inadequate educational opportunities, gender inequality, and a range of health risks. 1 Child labor is defined by the relevant international conventions (UNICEF's Convention on the Rights of the Child, 2 International Labor Organization [ILO] Convention 138, 3 and especially, 182 4) not by the activities performed by the child, but by the consequences of such activities (exceptions are the so-called unconditional worst forms of child labor such as prostitution and bondage, as noted in ILO Convention 182). For instance, work affecting a child's health and schooling should, according to these conventions, be eliminated. 5 Identifying the health effects of child labor is essential because it enables policymakers to decide which types of child labor to target for eradication.

The ILO estimates that there are approximately 250 million child laborers worldwide, with at least 120 million of them working under circumstances that have denied them a childhood and in conditions that jeopardize their health and even their lives. Most working children are ages 11 to 14 years old, but as many as 60 million are between the ages of 5 and 11. 6 Although the exact numbers are not known, available statistics indicate that approximately 96% of child workers reside in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; there are also pockets of child labor in many industrialized countries. 5,7,8 In spite of a reported decline in child labor during the period 1995 to 2000, 9 child labor remains a major concern.

Most child laborers begin working at a very young age, are malnourished, and work long hours in hazardous occupations; frequently they do not attend school. They receive very low wages or are unpaid, and their income or help is usually essential for family survival. They are mainly employed in the informal sector, with agriculture accounting for more children workers than any other sector. It is estimated that, in developing countries, at least 90% of economically active children in rural areas are employed in agriculture. 10 Recent ILO statistics from 20 developing countries categorized the proportion of economically active children aged 5 to 14 years as employed in agriculture, animal husbandry, and related work at 74% (73.3% of boys and 78.8% of girls). 11

Short term, the most obvious economic impact of child labor at the family level is an increase in household income. Long term, the underaccumulation of human capital caused by low school attendance and poor health is a serious negative consequence of child labor, representing a missed opportunity to enhance the productivity and future earnings capacity of the next generation. 12 Child laborers grow up to be low-wage-earning adults; as a result, their offspring will also be compelled to work to supplement the family's income. In this way, poverty and child labor is passed from generation to generation. 13,14

Although child labor is recognized as a global health problem, research on its health impact on children has been limited and sometimes inconsistent. In 1998, Graitcer and Lerer published the first comprehensive review of the effect of child labor on children's health by extrapolating data from the Global Burden of Disease Study. 15 The occupational mortality rate among children matched the adult occupational mortality rate, such that the occupational mortality rate indicates mortality associated with child labor. In another study, in 2000, Graitcer and Lerer did not find any differences in the health status of working and nonworking Egyptian children in the short run (the children were not followed to adulthood). 16 A 2003 report on children's work in Morocco, 17 Yemen, 18 and Guatemala, 19 and a review developed under the aegis of Understanding Children's Work Project 20 provide an overview of the nature and extent of child labor, its determinants, and its consequences for the health and education of children in these countries. Several case-control and cohort studies have reported on the association of child labor, impaired growth, and malnutrition. 21⁻26

The health effects of child labor on children and the correlation between current health and future health status are difficult to investigate and are compounded by short-term versus long-term health consequences. The situation is further complicated because work can contribute to an improvement in a poor child's nutritional status (a positive health effect). 14 Finally, the anthropometric measurements that traditionally have been used to evaluate children's health status are of limited value for those who are age 10 years and older.

We provide evidence, garnered from a cross section of countries, on the relation between child labor and children's health. To our knowledge, this study represents the first use of cross-country data to examine the issue. The benefit of cross-country data is that they allow us to synthesize indicators, creating a set of indicators unavailable in micro- or individual-country data. The drawback to using different data sources is that the statistics may not be comparable. To avoid problems of comparability, we limited ourselves to data that were standardized by the institutions that collected or compiled them. We analyzed the health effects of child labor on children by correlating existing health indicators and the prevalence of child labor in a large group of developing countries (Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon's Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Uganda, Uruguay, Tanzania, Venezuela, Vietnam, Thailand, Togo, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe).

METHODS

Data and Indicator Sources

We derived our estimates on the prevalence of child labor among children aged 10 to 14 years from only 1 data set: the World Bank's World Development Indicators. 27 This source limits its estimates of working children to the "economically active population," which means that children who are in non economic activities or are employed in hidden forms of work such as domestic service, prostitution, and armed conflict are not included.

Health indicators, such as health status, and health determinant indicators, which give information about the health of a community or population relative to some criteria or in comparison with other communities or populations, were obtained from the World Development Indicators, the Global Burden of Disease Study, 28 and the life tables for 191 countries (our study included only the 83 developing countries). 29

The following rates and percentages were obtained from the World Bank database: male and female adult mortality rates, fertility rates, the prevalence of undernourishment (percentage of population), the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among adults (percentage of population), and national poverty levels (percentage of population below the national poverty line, as determined using the World Bank's country poverty assessments).

The World Bank's data set came from multitopic welfare surveys, such as the Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS), which measure and analyze poverty. Dozens of countries have implemented multitopic surveys, and many of them have conducted the same survey repeatedly, allowing for relevant comparisons across time. Multitopic surveys can also be used to measure the effect of public policies and programs on poverty. The LSMS-one of the best known and most useful of these surveys-has a questionnaire designed to study multiple aspects of household welfare and behavior; it also incorporates extensive quality-control features. The main objective of LSMS surveys is to collect household data that can be used to assess household welfare, understand household behavior, and evaluate the effect of various government policies on the quality living conditions of the population. Accordingly, LSMS surveys collect information on employment, household income and expenditures; asset ownership, such as housing or land; health; education; fertility; nutrition; migration; and access to services and social programs. To minimize errors and delays in data processing, LSMS surveys are implemented with distinct procedures that resolve most inconsistencies in the raw data before the data reach the central statistical office.

Data on HIV/AIDS infections, non-HIV infections, and malaria among children aged 5 to 14 years, associated with 4 major risk factors (malnutrition, poor water and lack of sanitation and hygiene, unsafe sex, and dangerous occupation), came from the Global Burden of Disease Study. These indicators are expressed as disability-adjusted life years calculated as the sum of years of life lost because of disability and years of life lived with disability. Mortality rates among children, both boys and girls, aged 10 to 14 years were obtained from these life tables.

The data, all from the year 2000, were collected from 83 countries in 6 geographic regions, as defined by the Global Burden of Disease Study (sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Pacific Islands, China, India, and North Africa/Middle East).

Data Analysis

The data on child labor (expressed as a percentage of children aged 10 to14 years who were workers) and health indicators were analyzed by multiple regression to ascertain the effect of child labor on the various health indicators. All data were aggregated at the national level. The strength of the association between the percentage of children who were workers and HIV/AIDS infections, non-HIV infections, and malaria as expressed by disability-adjusted life years were also correlated using SPSS version 10 for Windows (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Ill).

The following were designated as dependent variables: the mortality rate among boys aged 10 to 14 years, the mortality rate among girls aged 10 to 14 years, and the percentage of the population aged 10 to 14 years undernourished.

Mortality rate among children aged 10 to 14 years is an important health indicator, commonly related to accidents. We chose mortality rate among children as a dependent variable because we could test independent variables against it to determine which independent variables most influence mortality in this age range. For each of the first 2 dependent variables, 2 separate regression models were developed, 1 using only the adult mortality rate for women and the other using only the adult male mortality rate. This avoided possible colinearity between these 2 independent variables, a problem that could have occurred had we used a combined version of the adult mortality rate. We chose prevalence of malnutrition in the population as a dependent variable because it reflects the health environment of households and we wished to determine which variables were significantly related to it.

The independent (or predictor) variables used to predict the dependent variables were the following, in various combinations: adult mortality rate for men, adult mortality rate for women, percentage of the population below the poverty line, percentage of adults infected with HIV/AIDS, percentage of the population undernourished, percentage of children aged 10 to14 years who were workers (child labor prevalence).

RESULTS

Figures 1 and 2 show the associations between the predictor variables and the dependent variables; Table 1 presents the multiple regression results. Figures 1 and 2 show that child labor appeared to be negatively correlated with the health status of the population, supporting the hypothesis that child labor affects child health.

This association could be caused by other factors affecting the population's health status that were also correlated with the percentage of children engaged in paid labor. Therefore, we included control variables such as the percentage of the population below the poverty line and the adult mortality rate in the regression. The results of the regression confirmed that several variables played a determining role in the mortality rates of children aged 10 to 14 years and that 2 of these variables also affected the level of undernourishment. The prevalence of child labor was a significant predictor of undernourishment in a population and of the mortality rate for children aged 10 to 14 years (boys and girls), confirming that child labor affects children's health.

We also looked at the association between childhood morbidity, as measured by disability-adjusted life years, and the prevalence of child labor in the 6 regions we studied (Figure 3). In each of the regions with a high prevalence of child labor, there was a high correlation between child labor and childhood morbidity associated with HIV/AIDS, non-HIV infectious diseases, and malaria.

DISCUSSION

Child labor remains one of the most provocative and controversial challenges facing the world at the beginning of the 21st century. Furthermore, child labor's close links to poverty, lack of education, poor health, and gender inequalities highlight the need for broad-based social and economic progress.

By extrapolating data from the Global Burden of Disease Study, Graitcer and Lerer estimated mortality, morbidity, and disability associated with child labor. 15 Despite the limits of the Global Burden of Disease Study-for example, the health statistics were constrained by the age stratification used, and the injury data were not provided by occupation-Graitcer and Lerer were able to estimate work-related injury and mortality. They concluded that in all regions the occupational mortality rate among children matched the adult occupational mortality rate, indicating that children may be working in conditions that are as hazardous as, or even more hazardous than, those of adults. Burn injury estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study show that work-related burns constituted more than one third of all burn injuries sustained among children aged 5 to 14 years. It is worth noting that this statistic did not take into account burns sustained during housework, the most common of which occur while cooking over an open fire.

Graitcer and Lerer did not find any health problems in working Egyptian children, 16 but they argued that a child's exposure to poor working conditions and health hazards may result in health consequences much later in life. In reports on child labor in Morocco, 17 Yemen, 18 and Guatemala, 19 the researchers of the Understanding Children's Work project found few or no ill health effects resulting from work and suggested that this might be because the healthiest children are selected for work or because health consequences may not become apparent until a later stage in a child's life. They also showed that it is not work per se that is damaging to a child's health, but rather certain kinds of work.

Studies with an ecological design have proven valuable in descriptive and etiological epidemiology, as well as in economics, social planning, and policy evaluation. 30 Our study is the first to analyze the health effects of child labor with cross-sectional data, showing that some health indicators are affected by child labor.

In Table 1, the independent variables account for approximately 77% of the mortality rates for children, both boys and girls, aged 10 to 14 years. This significance ( P < .001) suggests that the model is both valid and statistically significant. Child labor, poverty, and adult mortality rates explain, at a significant level, the variance in adolescent mortality among boys and girls aged 10 to 14 years. The percentage of the population that is undernourished does not explain adolescent mortality rates for either boys or girls. For each 1 of the first 2 dependent variables (adolescent mortality rates for boys and girls aged 10 to14 years), we developed 2 regression models, one taking into account only the adult mortality rate for women and the other the combined adult mortality rate for men and women. We did this to avoid any colinearity between these 2 independent variables.

The percentage of the population living below the poverty line was designated an independent variable because of its relevance to policy decisions on education, health, decentralization of resource management, and preventive measures. As predictor variables, child labor and poverty both were significantly correlated with malnutrition (as measured by the percentage of population that was undernourished), whereas the percentage of HIV/AIDS among adults was not significantly related to malnutrition.

Mortality rates for different age groups are important indicators of health status in a country. In the absence of incidence and prevalence rates for disease (morbidity data), they serve to identify vulnerable populations. They are also among the indicators most frequently used to compare levels of socioeconomic development across countries. The finding that child labor prevalence is significantly correlated with adolescent mortality, a population's nutrition level, and the presence of infectious disease among children suggests that countries with high child labor prevalence have low health status.

Work can limit a child's opportunities to obtain an education, especially for girls, whose educational attainment is a recognized determinant of child survival and health. 31 Work can expose children to physical and social environments conducive to high-risk sexual behavior. Because child labor is significantly correlated with infectious diseases among children, including HIV/AIDS, interventions that reduce child labor rates could have a direct health benefit.

We have identified a set of health indicators affected by child labor, and our data support the hypothesis that child labor affects children's health, particularly as measured by adolescent mortality rates. Given the nature of the available data, it is difficult to carry out a proper causality analysis. The methodological weakness of an ecological study is that estimates of effect at the ecological level cannot be extrapolated to individuals. The ecological design did not permit us to obtain direct estimates of the effect of child labor in exposed versus unexposed populations. Therefore, we could not be certain, for instance, that the children experiencing greater morbidity and mortality in a given population were actually child laborers. Other drawbacks to the ecological method are that the method relies on existing data sources, which are often flawed and may involve confounding variables for which control may be difficult. 32 Problems with the ecological approach, however, are minimized when measurement, analysis, and interpretation are all at the group level and the data sources are reliable. The ecological design lends itself to the study of structural or sociological effects on human behavior and concomitant disease or injury. The principal characteristic of the ecological design-namely, that it examines differences between groups-makes it well suited to evaluating social and health policies, such as those related to injury prevention. 33

Although our findings indicate that child labor may be affecting the health of children, more data are needed to develop a better understanding of the short- and long-term health problems associated with child labor. Most important, longitudinal studies are required to understand the short- and long-term health effects of child labor on the individual child.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Understanding Children's Work (Inter-Agency Research Cooperation Project), University of Rome, Italy.

Human Participant Protection
No protocol approval was needed for this study.

Notes

Peer Reviewed

Contributors
P. Roggero originated the study and supervised all aspects of its implementation. V. Mangiaterra assisted with the study and supervised research input. F. Bustreo contributed ideas and reviewed drafts of the article. F. Rosati synthesized analyses and interpreted findings. All authors reviewed the drafts of the article.

References

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The Health Impact of Child Labor in Developing Countries: Evidence From Cross-Country Data

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Objectives. Research on child labor and its effect on health has been limited. We sought to determine the impact of child labor on children's health by correlating existing health indicators with the prevalence of child labor in selected developing ...

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Before the Syrian Civil war, most children were able to live normal lives and go to school. Now due to the war going on in Syria the children are now forced to work to help with the families income, so starting at 6 years old. Reduced family livelihood opportunities and millions of impovershed households in the region, results in the child labor reaching critical levels. Most common were children involved in armed conflict, commercial sexual exploitation, and illegal activities including organized begging and child trafficking.

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Before Syria was plunged into war more than four years ago, nearly all children went to school. Now, according to a new report on child labor, many of them - some as young as 6 - are working to supplement family incomes.

Save the Children and the United Nations Children's Fund, which collaborated on the report released Wednesday, said that children were working in more than 75 percent of households surveyed inside Syria. Among the Syrian war refugees surveyed in neighboring countries, the report said, nearly half of the children were joint or sole breadwinners.

"The Syria crisis has dramatically reduced family livelihood opportunities and impoverished millions of households in the region, resulting in child labor reaching critical levels," Roger Hearn, regional director for Save the Children's operations in the Middle East and Eurasia, said in announcing the report.

Though it was not necessarily a surprise, given all the other deadly risks confronting children in Syria, the report added a largely overlooked dimension to the crisis that has engulfed that country and its neighbors since the war began in March 2011.

The report said the most vulnerable of all were those children involved in "armed conflict, commercial sexual exploitation and illicit activities including organized begging and child trafficking."

Three out of four working children surveyed in Jordan's enormous Zaatari refugee camp for Syrians have reported health problems at work, the report said. More than one in five who are casually employed in farm work in Jordan have been injured on the job.

The economic desperation of Syrian families upended by the war has added to fears of a lost generation, with children missing years of school. Before the war, Syria was considered a middle-income country, and the literacy rate was 90 percent.

"Syria's children are paying a heavy price for the world's failure to put an end to the conflict," the report concluded.

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Child Labor Rises Sharply in Syria, Upended by War and Mayhem

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Before Syria was plunged into war more than four years ago, nearly all children went to school. Now, according to a new report on child labor, many of them - some as young as 6 - are working to supplement family incomes.

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Although we see that child labor has decreased over the years. Significantly in many modern and developed countries. Child labor is still prominent in the world and we should focus to eradicate it completely.

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The International Labour Organisation states in its latest World Report on Child Labour (2013) that there are around 265 million working children in the world-almost 17 per cent of the worldwide child population. According to the publicly available data discussed in more detail below, Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where child labour is most prevalent.

While absolute numbers are still high, particularly in those countries with the lowest standards of living, from a historical viewpoint there are concrete examples of countries that managed to virtually eliminate widespread child labour in the course of a century. The United Kingdom is a case in point. In terms of recent developments, global trends show a significant reduction in child labour over the last couple of decades. However, there is wide dispersion in the progress that different countries have achieved.
See all interactive charts on child labor ↓
Historical studies suggest that child work was widespread in Europe and North America in the 19th century, but declined very rapidly at the turn of the 20th century. The available historical evidence seems consistent with the fact that industrialisation in Western countries initially increased the demand for child labour, but then eventually contributed towards its elimination.

These visualizations show the share of children in employment for the UK and the United States at the turn of the 20th century. For the US chart you can add data on rural versus urban child labour trends: for both boys and girls, the incidence of child labour was higher in rural populations.

Whilst consistent survey data on child labour in the UK is limited beyond 1911, some estimates of 20th century labour have emerged. These statistics show the significant impact of the First and Second World Wars on childhood employment. Following a reported spike in employment during the First World War (1914-1918), rates of childhood labour appeared to fall to approximately 6-7 per cent of children aged 12-14 in England and Wales.

This would make the UK's rate of reduction in child labour slightly faster than that of the United States. However, with the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the incidence of child employment appeared to show another spike- by 1944, this had increased again to 15.3 per cent of 12-14 year olds.

A global comparison

How do the child labour figures above compare to current global estimates? This visualization plots the series for the UK, US, and also Italy, together with two recent global series. The different series in this chart are not perfectly comparable because of differences in the definitions. However, they do provide a rough sense of perspective.

As we can see, the incidence of child labour in England in 1900 was similar to global incidence a century later. Global rates of child labour today are similar to those of Italy in the 1950's at around 10 per cent. In the next section we explore these series in more detail and discuss recent developments.

The incidence of child labour has been going down in recent years

A complete and overview of recent global trends in child labour can be found in the ILO's report Marking Progress Against Child Labour (2013) produced by the organization's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). This report presents global estimates and trends for the period 2000-2012.

The two charts here show the ILO report data. This first chart presents the recent changes in the world-wide share of children (ages 5-17) in employment.

As we discuss below, there is lack of consensus regarding the appropriate ages for measuring child labor, particularly for the purpose of cross-country comparisons and global aggregates. The age bracket ranging from 5 to 17 years of age is common in many UN reports, but there is evidently a need to differentiate work at different ages, since children in their teenage years are less vulnerable to workplace abuse. Other common age brackets are 5-11 and 5-14 years of age.

The second chart presents global trends using estimates in two age brackets: 5-14 and 15-17 years of age. Unfortunately these global estimates are not broken down by gender, and are not available for other age brackets. However, the pattern is consistent with the remark made above: child labour has been going down in recent years.

The share of economically active children in the world has been going down for decades

The ILO Programme on Estimates and Projections of the Economically Active Population (EPEAP) has been producing statistics on labour force participation (for adults and children) since 1950, through the ILO's cross-country database known as LABORSTA. Basu (1999) uses this source to produce global labour force participation rates for children (ages 10-14) in the period 1950-1995.

This visualization presents the corresponding trend using the data published in Basu (1999). While these estimates are informative about child labour, they cannot be linked directly to those of children in employment published by the ILO IPEC for the period 2000-2012 due to issues of comparability; specifically, the IPEC and EPEAP estimates discussed above rely on different survey instruments covering a different set of countries, and break up the relevant population in different age brackets.

Many studies rely on the LABORSTA data to shed light on the extent of child labour in the 20th century. However, this source is generally believed to understate the extent of child labour, since data is not collected for work inside the household (not even market work). Nonetheless, regardless of discrepancies between these two sources, the trends tell a consistent story: the share of economically active children in the world has been going down for decades.

Where do children work?

Contrary to popular perception, most working children in the world are unpaid family workers, rather than paid workers in manufacturing establishments or other forms of wage employment. This visualization shows a breakdown of 2012 global estimates of child labour by employment status.

Schultz and Strauss (2008) compile information from a number of different sources (mostly country-specific datasets from national statistics offices-see the original paper for detailed sources) to provide a picture of the industrial composition of economically active children. This table presents their results. In almost every listed country, a majority of economically active children work in agriculture, forestry, or fishing.

A point that is also worth emphasizing here is the lack of consistency in the age brackets for which child labour estimates are available.

Child labour across countries today

How does the incidence of child labour vary across countries?

This visualization shows the share of children (7-14 years) in employment for a number of countries (for the years in which data is publicly available from the World Bank consolidated dataset).

As it can be appreciated, the prevalence of child labour varies widely by country; for instance, the share of children in employment (here defined in terms of being economically active for one hour a week) was fifteen times larger in Uganda than in Turkey according to 2006 estimates. While most countries exhibit a downward trend, many countries are lagging.

Switch to the map view in this chart to compare the level of child labour between countries. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where child labour is most prevalent, and also the region where progress has been slowest and least consistent.

What fraction of working children are not attending school?

As we discuss in more detail below, child labour is by definition problematic whenever it interferes with the children's development. Because of this it is informative to study child labour specifically when it is coupled with absence from school.

The visualization here shows the share of children in employment who work only (i.e. those children who are economically active and do not attend school). Again, there is wide variation across countries; while in Latin America the majority of children who are economically active also attend school, in sub-Saharan Africa this is not the case. However, trends are encouraging on the whole, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where the problem is most acute. The next section exploring correlates, determinants and consequences of child labour, provides more information about the link between work and school attendance.

How many hours do working children actually work?

The harmful consequences of child labor are partly determined by the intensity of work, and how it affects time allocation in other activities, such as playing or learning (more on this below). Hence, to understand child labor it is crucial to understand time allocation.

The chartshows, country by country, the weekly average of hours worked by children (ages 7-14) who are economically active.

As we can see, average hours worked by children vary widely across countries, even at similar levels of GDP per capita. For example, while average incomes in Bangladesh and Nepal are roughly similar, in the former economically active children spend more than three times as much time working.

In fact, even across countries with similar labor force participation of children, differences in average hours worked are large.

Current gender gaps

In the majority of countries boys are more likely than girls to be engaged in economic activity. The visualization here presents the incidence of child employment for boys vs. girls by country, according to the most recent estimates available from the data published by the World Bank. Here, the diagonal line marks equal values for boys and girls; as it can be appreciated, most countries lie below the diagonal line.

As it has already been mentioned, child labour is particularly problematic to the extent that it hinders the children's development, notably by interfering with schooling. Since time is a scarce resource, the extent to which children's employment is linked to school attendance depends on the type and number of hours worked.

In countries where children tend to work longer hours, it is more common that working children remain out of school. The chart here shows this by plotting country-level average hours worked by children against share of working children who are out of school.

The chart here shows aggregates, but we can see a similar relationship between school attendance and hours worked using micro data (i.e., plotting the relationship by pooling observations across individual households).

The visualization from Schultz and Strauss (2008) presents evidence of this link using micro data from UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (2000 and 2001). It plots school attendance rates for children 10-14 against total hours worked in the last week (by type of work) with 95 percent confidence intervals (labeled CI and plotted in lighter shades).

The steepest part of the curves are in the range 20-45 hours, suggesting-as one would naturally expect-that it is most difficult for a child to attend school when approaching full-time work. This evidence also shows that there are no significant difference by domestic or marketed work.

Is there a causal relationship between children's work and schooling?

The above relationship between work and schooling is informative about the impact of children's work on schooling, but is not sufficient to establish causality; there are many potential economic and cultural factors that simultaneously influence both schooling and work decisions; and in any case, the direction of the relationships is not obvious-do children work because they are not attending school, or do they fail to attend school because they are working?

A number of academic studies have tried to establish causality by attempting to find a factor (an 'instrumental variable') that only affects whether a child works without affecting how the family values other uses of the child's time (e.g. Rosati, F., Rossi, M. (2003); ). While these studies can be criticized on the grounds of the validity of the instrumental variables used, they seem to agree on the fact that there is a stronger association between child labour and schooling than the raw data would suggest.

Cross-country data on child labour and economic growth suggests a strong negative correlation between economic status and child labour. This visualization depicts the cross-country incidence of child labour (share of children ages 7-14 involved in economic activity) against GDP per capita (PPP adjusted GDP per capita in international dollars). To provide some context regarding the absolute number of children, each country's observation is pictured as a circle where the size of the circle represents population aged 5-14.

This evidence cannot be interpreted causally; as before, countries differ in many aspects that may be associated with child labour choices and income. But there are a number of reasons why, conceptually, child labour might be indeed caused by poor living conditions. For example, children might only work if the parents are unable to meet subsistence conditions; or it could be the case that parents allocate more of the children's time to schooling as they afford the necessary inputs for schooling (text-books, uniforms, etc).

Partly following this logic, several countries have implemented cash transfer programmes in an attempt to discourage child labour and increase schooling. The idea behind these programmes is that the cash transfers are conditioned on a number of desirable actions, including sending children to school; and in doing so, they lower the relative costs of schooling and raise family income.

Schultz (2004) evaluates one such program in Mexico (the so-called 'Progresa' program) and finds a significant reduction in wage and market work associated with eligibility for Progresa. Similar findings have been found in other countries as well. The literature often refers to these programmes as the prime example of "collaborative measures" against child labour: non-coercive interventions that alter the economic environment of decision makers in order to make them more willing to let children stay out of work.

Definitions and measurement

General definition

Broadly speaking, the term "child labour" is defined as the employment of children in any work that deprives them of their childhood and dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development.

The ILO defines child labour as work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and that interferes with the children's schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, either by obliging them to leave school prematurely, or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work (a general definition along these lines can be found in the ILO's Child Labour website). The ILO's Convention No. 138, adopted in 1973 and ratified by most countries of the world, stipulates the relevant ages that different countries use to define child labour.

Hours worked and age classification

According to the definition provided above, whether or not a given job is considered 'child labour' depends on the details of the actual context - the child's age, the number of hours worked and the type of tasks performed. The chart here, from Hilowitz (2004), shows a diagrammatic classification of child labour (shaded region) depending on age and type of work.

This chart shows why it is difficult to produce estimates of child labour that are suitable for cross-country comparisons: there are differences in legislation, and age matters relative to the type of work.

According to the conceptual classification used by the ILO, children in child labour include those in worst forms of child labour and children in employment below the minimum age, excluding children in permissible light work - where "permissible light work" is defined as any non-hazardous work by children (ages 12 to 14) of less than 14 hours during the reference week (for more details see ILO-IPEC, Diallo, Y., et al. (2013)).

Global aggregates and cross-country data are not publicly available for 'children in child labour' as per the conceptual definition above. The ILO tends to report figures of economically active children for the broadest age bracket (5-17 years of age). The World Bank - World Development Indicators also report figures of economically active children, but use a narrower age definition (7-14 years of age). In both cases, 'economically active' refers to children who work for at least one hour during a reference week.

Because of the limitations of the data, academic studies often focus on children's time allocation, which leaves more room for exploring the consequences of employment on other activities, such as school attendance. These studies tend to rely on country-specific survey data.

Terminology

Many studies distinguish between 'children in child labour' and 'children in employment', while using the terms 'working children', 'children in economic activity' and 'children in employment' interchangeably. In such cases, the former ('children in child labour') are considered a subset of the latter ('children in employment' or any of the aforementioned interchangeable terms).

As noted above, children in child labour include those in worst forms of child labour and children in employment below the minimum age, excluding children in permissible light work-where "permissible light work" is defined as any non-hazardous work by children (ages 12 to 14) of less than 14 hours during the reference week (for more details see ILO-IPEC, Diallo, Y., et al. (2013)).

Data quality

Schultz and Strauss (2008) provide a complete account of the particular challenges that arise from measuring children employment through household surveys. The authors highlight difficulties arising from coverage (i.e. capturing the most vulnerable children through random sampling) and accuracy (i.e. misreported hours worked and sensitivity to the recall period used).

Cunningham and Viazzo (1996) and Humphries (2010) note similar challenges in the use of national census and household survey data for accurate coverage of the incidence of child labour. There remains a generally accepted consensus that census data is likely to underestimate the scale of child labour for several reasons. This is particuarly important in case of later censuses, where national regulation required children to be in education; in this case, child labour was likely to be underreported, for fear of prosecution. These estimates therefore often underrepresent the numerous children, particularly girls, who worked unpaid at home. Since census results typically capture data from households, this often limits coverage to children who live within a family household. This can exclude children either orphaned, or living on the streets- in many cases, we might expect the incidence of child labour to be more prevalent in these demographics.

Specifically regarding the information published by the World Bank in their World Development Indicators, it is important to highlight that, while definitions are standardized (children in employment are always defined as those children aged 7-14 involved in economic activity for at least one hour in the reference week of the corresponding survey), the data-collection instruments are not standardized across the different sub-sources feeding the consolidated dataset. It is because of this that many policy reports (such as the much-referenced report Marking Progress Against Child Labour (2013)) 'homogenize' the data before reporting estimates, by correcting for discrepancies in the underlying survey instruments. Those visualizations presented here that use the consolidated data published by the World Bank have not been corrected.

Issues of consistency across different survey instruments in the World Bank consolidated data can help us explain country-specific patterns that are otherwise difficult to interpret. Consider the case of India. As can be appreciated in this visualization, the incidence of child labour in India seems to jump up in 2006, only to go back in 2010 to the levels that would have been predicted with the observations from 2000 and 2005. After checking the survey catalogue, it becomes clear that the estimates for 2006 come from the country's Demographic and Health Survey, while those for the other years come from consecutive rounds of the National Sample Survey. Cases such as this illustrate why current academic studies typically rely on data stemming from a single survey instrument, such as UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys.

Data and research gaps

In addition to the above-mentioned difficulties related to measurement, there are also important limitations in the way child labour data is made available.

As pointed out before, most UN reports publish global child labour estimates for custom age brackets, and only sometimes break down estimates by gender and type of work (including distinctions for 'light work', 'hazardous work', etc.). To our knowledge, there are no publicly available cross-country estimates of the evolution of child labour, broken down simultaneously by gender, age and type of work.

This is unfortunate, since a set of time-series constructed from ' contingency tables' cutting across age, gender and type of work would give us a much better picture of where to focus our efforts to fight child labour. Constructing such tables should be straightforward from the depurated micro-data used to produce the existing global reports.

Relatedly, it would be similarly helpful if the depurated cross-country series published in the World Bank - World Development Indicators were expanded to account for more flexible definitions of economic activity beyond "one hour of work in the reference week".

Some exercises along these lines have already been undertaken in academia. As we discuss above, Schultz and Strauss (2008) present estimates of 'children in economic activity', by type of activity (market work and domestic work) and by number of hours worked. To do this, the authors used mainly UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) from 2000 and 2001. It would be extremely helpful for researchers and policymakers if such exercises were updated and published regularly in open-access data portals.

Regarding gaps in empirical research, it is important to highlight the lack of robust evidence speaking to the consequences of child labour on future outcomes - such as the working children's subsequent health and earnings in adulthood. Schultz and Strauss (2008) provide a summary of available evidence on this research front. The body of literature is thin and the econometric results tend to be fragile because of difficulties to establish causality.

A related research question for which there is little robust empirical evidence is whether child labor is the result of 'agency problems' - namely, whether children work because parents fail to fully consider the tradeoffs and costs that work has on their children.

Children in employment (country-specific historical data)

Toniolo and Vecchi (2008)

Data Source: Toniolo, Gianni, and Giovanni Vecchi. Italian Children at Work. 1881-1961. Giornale degli economisti e Annali di economia (2007): 401-427.

Description of available measures: Share of children ages 10-14 (total, and by gender) who are economically active

Time span: 1981-1961

Geographical coverage: Italy

Cunningham and Viazzo (1996)

Data Source: Cunningham, Hugh, and Pier Paolo Viazzo. Child Labour in Historical Perspective 1800-1985: Case Studies from Europe, Japan and Colombia. No. hisper96/1. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 1996.

Description of available measures: Share of boys and girls (ages 10-14) recorded as working

Time span: 1851-1911

Geographical coverage: United Kingdom

World Development Indicators published by the World Bank (based on data from ILO, UNICEF and the World Bank)

The main source of consolidated data on child labour is the inter-agency research cooperation programme Understanding Children's Work. The principal source for this programme is the ILO's Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC), which is the statistical arm of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). Understanding Children's Work links the SIMPOC data with data produced by the World Bank (specifically the Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study datasets) and UNICEF (specifically datasets produced with the organization's so-called Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys); as well as data from direct partnerships with national statistical offices. Details about the corresponding household surveys used to produce these datasets, including information about sample size, sample units and coverage, can be found in survey catalog of Understanding Children's Work.

Data Source: Understanding Children's Work project based on data from ILO, UNICEF and the World Bank. This data is published by the World Bank.

Description of available measures:

Geographical coverage: Global by country (predominantly low and middle income countries)

Link: http://data.worldbank.org/indicators

ILO - ILOSTAT (formerly ILO - LABORSTA)

The ILO Programme on Estimates and Projections of the Economically Active Population (EPEAP) has been producing statistics on labour force participation (for adults and children) since 1945, through the database known as ILOSTAT (formerly LABORSTA). Many studies rely on the LABORSTA/ILOSTAT data to shed light on the extent of child labour in the 20th century, before ILO started producing specialized child labour data. LABORSTA/ILOSTAT data is however problematic as a source to measure child labour, since data on work inside the household (even market work) are often not collected. Schultz and Strauss (2008) say that this source is not reliably useful for analyzing changes in child labor over time, given that the survey instruments, coverage, and estimation methodologies are not designed for this purpose.

Data Source: ILO Programme on Estimates and Projections of the Economically Active Population (EPEAP), through the

Description of available measures: Labour force participation rates by age groups

Time span: Since 1950

Geographical coverage: Global by country

Link: http://www.ilo.org/ilostat/

Children's time allocation (cross-country data)

UNICEF MICS

The UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, which can be obtained upon request, contain rich information about children's time allocation in 108 countries (essentially the same set of countries for which the World Bank publishes the data referenced above). They include a child labour module which asks children 5-14 whether they work outside of their household in the last week and the last year as well as how many hours they worked outside the household in the last week. The surveys also collect hours in the last week for work in domestic chores and in the household business.

Data Source: UNICEF MICS

Description of available measures: Children's time allocation outside their household and in domestic chores in the household

Time span: 1994-2015

Geographical coverage: Global by country (predominantly low and middle income countries)

Link: http://mics.unicef.org/

Composite indices

Maplecroft's Child Labour Index

Maplecroft's Child Labour Index evaluates the frequency and severity of reported child labour incidents in 197 countries. The private risk analysis firm producing the data does not provide details about its methodology, but it does produce periodic analysis reports that are publicly available. Further information can be found on Maplecroft's website.

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Why and where do children work? How did child labor change over time?

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We can help by first educating ourselves on the topic. Then taking action and buy fair trade and sweatshop-free products whenever possible. Contact local, regional, and national legislators, businesses that do business in countries that have child labor, and government leaders. Finally, educate others.

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Learning, living, and teaching for a better world

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Bolivian legislature allowing children as young as 10 to work has created much controversy. An argument between those who support it and see it as growing up or tradition. And those that condemn it as exploitation.

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Bolivian legislation allowing children as young as 10 to work has created a rift between those who support it as Andean tradition and others who condemn it as exploitation.

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The article discusses many aspects of human trafficking, a form of child labor, and how it must be eradicated immediately. Human trafficking is when people are kidnapped and then sold to people who make them work or other sexual things. There are several kinds of human labor these “slaves” are forced into, and this work is combined with a lot of abuse.

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Editor's Note: By Anisa Mehdi The Global Affairs column is curated by Stratfor's board of contributors, a diverse group of thinkers whose expertise inspires rigorous and innovative thought. Their opinions are their own and serve to complement and even challenge our beliefs. We welcome that challenge, and we hope our readers do too.
On an otherwise ordinary flight from Seattle to San Francisco, Alaska Airlines steward Sheila Fedrick noticed a disheveled teenager traveling with a well-dressed older man. She was silent; he was defensive. Fedrick's antenna went up. "She looked like she'd been through pure hell," Fedrick said. She whispered to the teen to look for a note in the plane's restroom. A three-word response was all it took: "I need help." Police were waiting at the airport when they landed. Thanks to Fedrick's training in spotting suspicious circumstances, a case of human trafficking was interrupted.

In the 21st century, slavery continues to be the scourge it has been for the past 4,000 years, modern abolitionists say. In 2016 alone, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 2,000 human traffickers and identified 400 victims.
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"Slavery is illegal in every country today but it is still practiced everywhere," Kevin Bales told an audience in the basement of a small Presbyterian church in Millburn, New Jersey, last month. Bales, a professor of contemporary slavery at the University of Nottingham and co-founder of the Free the Slaves NGO, attributes a recent rise in the numbers of slaves worldwide to the expansion of the global economy. While economic growth has offered great benefits to both producer and consumer, it has also spurred a search for cheap labor. In India, for example, thousands of young children are enslaved to make carpets that are sold in international markets. Men, women and children in impoverished communities -- places with little or no schooling for youngsters -- are particularly vulnerable to traffickers, who lure them in with promises of employment and sweets.

January was Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and a diverse group of people from northern New Jersey had gathered to learn how to act against slavery in our time. "Although the numbers of slaves are larger now than ever before in human history -- and there have been slaves throughout the course of human history," Bales told his audience, "the percentage of human beings suffering as slaves is lower than ever before." That's because of the exponential rise in the human population over the past few decades; when compared with the total number of people in the world, the amount of slaves -- as many as 46 million human beings, by some estimates -- appears smaller. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 22 percent of today's slaves are in the sex industry. Slave labor is also used in manufacturing products, from cars to faucets to frozen shrimp. Some slaves work in mines, while others work in homes. And many work in agriculture, including the cocoa sector.

Global Demand for Cheap Labor

Ivory Coast and Ghana are the world's biggest producers of cocoa: Ivory Coast produced 1.7 million metric tons of cocoa in the 2015-16 growing year, while Ghana produced about 840,000 metric tons. Together with Cameroon and Nigeria, these African nations account for 75 percent of the world's cocoa production. And although the chocolate industry may be worth $100 billion, only 2 percent of the profits come back to the source. So some plantation owners don't pay their workers; they say they can't afford to.

"We have become slaves because of cocoa," a freed Malian slave told filmmakers Brian Woods and Kate Blewett in their 2001 Peabody Award-winning documentary Slavery: A Global Investigation, based on Bales' Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. The man had been trafficked some 500 kilometers (300 miles) from Mali in search of work and was trapped. He could neither get paid nor get home. Ivorian officials intervened to free him and his fellow slaves from the plantation. The Malian Consul in Ivory Coast offered protection and trauma therapy in preparation for their long journey home.

Human trafficking is illegal. Yet Free the Slaves reports that slavery generates $150 billion a year. And while the percentage of humans in slavery may be at an all-time low, the treatment of people in slavery may also be at its nadir. Time was slaves were expensive. They were investments. Two hundred years ago, the average price of a slave was $40,000 when adjusted to today's money. Now that figure is under $100. That's why Bales calls slaves "disposable people." And that's why when a man escapes a cocoa plantation that enslaved him, he may be beaten to death. Stories of enslaved people disappearing are not uncommon.

Bales began his career as a researcher, never expecting, he said, to discover this degree of slavery in modern times. He has assisted in freeing slaves and has observed horrific human rights abuses. "I'm told I suffer PTSD from what I've seen," he said to the group in the Wyoming Presbyterian Church basement, "but it doesn't compare with what freed slaves are suffering." What keeps him going? "Seeing children out of slavery reunite with their parents." And discovering new perils.

A relationship between modern slavery and climate change is emerging. "Deforestation is visible in Brazil, Bangladesh, and India," Bales notes in his 2016 book, Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World. Maps indicate a connection between slave-based labor and the shrinking edges of the Amazon forest, as well as between slave-based labor and the denuding of protected mangrove swamps in Bangladesh that occurs alongside the country's expanding, illegal fishing operations.

In 2005, the ILO and the Ethos Institute launched the National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor. The pact "is an innovative tool that was able to penalize companies that used slave labor more efficiently and quickly than action through the national courts," the ILO reported in 2016. "By promoting shared responsibilities, companies voluntarily acknowledged accountability over unacceptable labor practices in their supply chains."

Last December, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved its first draft resolution in history on human trafficking in conflict situations. The goal was to strengthen the United Nations' ability to counter slavery and bolster international responses to this insidious form of organized crime. Outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon called on countries to investigate and prosecute cases of human trafficking, noting that the most vulnerable victims were women, children and refugees caught in conflict areas around the globe. But without popular insistence on compliance, slavery is likely to continue with impunity.

A Solution by the People, for the People

Does this mean giving up chocolate, cotton shirts or hand-woven carpets? Not necessarily. In fact, boycotting could do more harm than good, today's abolitionists say. In Ivory Coast, where most of the 1.3 million cocoa plantations are small farms, slave labor is atypical, affecting perhaps just 1 percent of the working population, according to Bales. Those farms may not pay well, working conditions may be dismal, but people are being paid in most cases. Cocoa is Ivory Coast's most important export crop, and about one-third of the world's cocoa comes from the West African country. Boycotting cocoa products could upend the entire Ivorian economy.

"Boycotting is going to hurt many people who are dependent on cocoa that are not engaged in slavery," argues Bob Boneberg, the New Jersey-based abolitionist who invited Bales to Millburn. "I prefer to think of industry as my friend." Industry is better able to police its own supply chains than the general public would be, he points out in his December 2016 blog:

"It is essential that businesses adopt and achieve four goals in order to eradicate slavery from commercial supply chains. These are: (1) The eradication of slavery through the entire depth of the supply chains, (2) The eradication of slavery across the entire breadth of the supply chains, (3) Certainty that slavery has been eradicated across the entire depth and breadth of the supply chains, and (4) Certainty that slavery does not reappear at any time and in any place in the supply chain."

Though these goals may seem basic, and perhaps even overly simplistic, businesses have not fully embraced their adoption. And that's where public pressure is needed. Along the lines of "certified organic," "no GMOs" and "free trade" standards, abolitionists recommend popular demand for companies' compliance with slave-free standards.

In Nottingham, England, and the Challenging Heights NGO in Ghana, people are working to make their cities "slave-free." This is a coordinated process that includes commitments from residents, elected officials and local businesses to address all aspects of the problem. Communities are asking: Can you ensure that products sold locally are slave-free? Are schools teaching not only the history of slavery, and the nature of modern slavery, but helping to ensure that our children know how to avoid situations in which they might be trafficked? Are our police sensitive to and investigating any possible cases of slavery?

In Indian cities, formerly enslaved sex workers are finding jobs in sewing partnerships that allow them to earn income outside the abusive and stigmatized sex industry. Meanwhile, Brazil has been internationally recognized for its compliance with the National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor and the success of its innovative and comprehensive campaign. Mobilizing multiple stakeholders is key to that success. "The Ministry of Labor and Employment was able to bring together actors at the public, private and worker levels in order to coordinate action and to promote social dialogue," reports the ILO.

"As of 2016, around 250 companies which account for 30 per cent of the Brazilian GDP have joined the pact (Ethos Institute, 2016). National banks agreed to discontinue granting business loans to companies on the dirty list ... Many signatory companies have altered their contracts to insert clauses of commercial restriction against sourcing from those that make use of slave labor (ILO, 2010). Companies such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Ipiranga have broken contracts with suppliers that do not adhere to the law."

Fedrick's wary eye and thoughtful response may have spared one young woman a terrible fate. Bales and other modern abolitionists also intervene to free slaves, as may U.S. immigration services and law enforcement agencies around the world. But the most effective approach, urge adversaries of slavery, is for communities to partner with industries and governments to create a systemic solution to end slavery, once and for all.

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Editor's Note: By Anisa Mehdi The Global Affairs column is curated by Stratfor's board of contributors, a diverse group of thinkers whose expertise inspires rigorous and innovative thought. Their opinions are their own and serve to complement and even challenge our beliefs. We welcome that challenge, and we hope our readers do too.