Child Labour
 there are some 250 million children 5-14 years old who are working in
developing countries.
 close to one-half of them (or 120 million), carried out this work on a full time
basis,
 more boys than girls work; close to three boys to two girls, on average.
 Also more girls than boys perform full-time housework of non-economic nature e.g., housekeeping in their own parents' household - many of them between 8-12
years old - in order to enable their parents or guardians to go to work, or to take
care of sick or handicapped members in the household.
Regional
 child labour is most prevalent in the developing regions of the globe.
 it is Asia (excluding Japan), as the most densely populated region of the world,
that has the most child workers (approximately 61% of the world's total as
compared with 32 % in Africa, 7% in Latin America, and one-fifth of one per cent
in Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand).
 Child labor is still widely used today in many countries, including Bangladesh.
Even though country law states that no child under the age of 14 may work, this
law is ignored.
 Children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops
making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target. They get
paid as little as 6 and a half cents per item. One of the largest companies in
Bangladesh is Harvest Rich, who claim not to use child labor.

The highest proportion of working children is in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly
one third of the children aged 14 and under (48 million children) are in the labour
force
 68.4 million children are trapped in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage, prostitution,
pornography and other illicit activities
 The number of children involved in armed conflicts has increased to about
300,000 over the past decade.
 Between 40 and 50 per cent of all forced labourers are children
 9.2 million of these children have been trafficked (bought and/or sold)10
 Nearly 70% are in agriculture (rural children, especially girls, usually start working
in this industry when they are very young, often between 5 and 7 years of age)
 22% are in services, including wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels,
transport, personal services, etc
 9% are in industry, including mining and quarrying, manufacturing and
construction
"It was like a prison, we were locked inside. We worked from 5 a.m. until midnight
making carpets and we slept among the machines." - Kumar, child labourer
Causes of Child Labour
 Poverty
 Inadequate school facilities
 Family size
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Immoral employers
Solutions to Child Labour
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Better access to education
Social awareness and activism
The rehabilitation of child labourers
Legislation and proper enforcement child labour laws
In turn, governments need to devote resources to education so that:
schooling is compulsory, of good quality and relevance, and is of little or no cost
to poor families.
Name Companies Using Child Labour
In the United States, shoemaker New Balance is notable for changing its policies after
intense pressure from campus anti-sweatshop groups. Clothing retailer Gap Inc., which
includes Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Forth & Towne brands, has significantly
changed its policies. Gap Inc. has developed a Code of Vendor Conduct which applies
across all of its brands based on internationally accepted labor standards. Walmart and
Nike are two of the largest corporate sponsors of sweatshop labor, but claim that they
have safeguards in place to avoid using the worst sweatshops. Disney has also
employed sweatshops to produce much of their clothing and toys, but their use has not
been as well publicized as the cases of Nike, Walmart, or Kathie Lee Gifford. In the
book "Disney; the Mouse Betrayed"; a chapter shows dealings with China, Vietnam,
Haiti, but especially targets Disney's relationship with the military junta of Burma, of
which it works hard to keep quiet given Burma's huge unpopularity in the international
community. "Dozens of American clothes makers, such as Old Navy, Gap, Guess,
Donna Karan, Victoria's Secret, have all signed pledges with the U.S. Department of
Labor stating their conditions are closely monitored and that no child labor is being
used. Disney has not."