Facts of the Matter -- Child labor

Artwork created for Designers Against Child Slavery

According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 158 million child laborers – more than one out of every seven children worldwide.

• Studies have found that the majority of child labor occurs in agriculture. Sixty percent of child laborers between ages 5 and 17 work in this sector, compared with 26 percent in service jobs and another 7 percent in industrial jobs. Picking bananas in Ecuador, cotton in Egypt, or tea in Bangladesh, these children confront long hours, extreme temperatures, health hazards from pesticides, and inadequate food, water, and sanitation – all for little or no pay. 
• In 2008, most child laborers were concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa (28.4 percent), Asia and the Pacific (14.8 percent), and Latin America and the Caribbean (9 percent). A survey of 26 countries by the International Labor Organization found that one quarter of child laborers sustain injuries or contract illnesses while working.
• The most exploited children are in war-torn countries and countries where the sex trade flourishes. Although exact figures aren’t available, Human Rights Watch estimates that hundreds of thousands of children – some as young as eight years old – serve in government forces or armed rebel groups. The U.S. Department of State believes that of the 800,000 human beings who are bought, sold, or forced across borders around the world each year, hundreds of thousands are teenage girls who are victims of the sex trade.
• The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 outlawed most forms of child labor in the United States. Human Rights Watch found that the majority of U.S. child laborers still work in agricultural fields, largely because of loopholes in the law that continue to allow children to work more than 10 hours a day for as little as $4 an hour. It also found that child farm workers drop out of school at four times the national rate. From 2005 to 2008, more than a quarter of work-related deaths among U.S. children resulted from farm labor.
• Laws combating child labor have expanded worldwide during the past decade, but many have loopholes similar to those in the United States, as well as lax enforcement. Nepal prohibits most forms of labor for children under 14, for example, but plantation and brick kiln workers are exempt from these laws.
• In 2006, the International Labor Organization set a target of eliminating what it considers “all the worst forms” of child labor by 2016. Despite international efforts, progress has been mixed. Child labor among boys increased by 7 percent from 2004 to 2008, while the number of girls engaging in child labor has declined by 15 percent.
• The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that roughly 15 million of the world’s child laborers are responsible for producing manufactured or mined goods for export to the United States.