Creating a safe and healthy world for our children is as important a task as any that exists. Yet millions of children around the world remain victims of poverty, illness, armed conflict, and exploitive and forced labor.
We examine this month some of the noteworthy initiatives under way to combat abusive child labor. We hope that this issue helps our interactive and print audiences to understand more fully the plight faced by the young girl pictured on our cover and the many efforts under way to help her and the many thousands of children in situations like hers around the world.
Childhoods are wasted in mind-numbing subsistence-level labor that produces minimal economic value, while leaching away the creativity and potential of future workers.
Denial and indifference have given way to acknowledgement, outrage, and a readiness to tackle the problem effectively.
Countries must step up law enforcement to rescue child slaves and deter traffickers.
The U.S. Congress has taken actions to penalize countries that engage in the worst forms of child labor and to rehabilitate the young victims of such practices.
An effective policy for ending child labor can be crafted only within the context of a country’s overall development strategy.
The government of Brazil—with assistance from many partners—has a number of efforts under way to eradicate child labor in that country.
Uganda’s Kids in Need program provides street children with shelter, counseling, education, medical care, and basic needs.
Helping to stop international child labor is not just an issue for government. Industry must also take an active role.
Grants from the U.S. Department of Labor
Facts from the State Department's 2004 Trafficking in Persons Report
An excerpt from the "Child Soldiers Global Report 2004", issued by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
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