Child labour: A global scourge
I found this post while searching for information on Nestlé and water rights. (A fun topic on it’s own. Look it up.) There are so many life and death issues of morality and ethics facing life on this planet, who has the time to read up on them all, much less mobilize and expend time and energy fighting back in the name of what’s right? Who knew that the exploitation of children could somehow conceivably still be a global issue here in 2014? Are we humans ever going to figure things out or is the lowest common denominator of the human race destined to always be hurting each other for the benefit of a few? I hope you’ll enjoy the coverage of this important issue that happened to cross my path.
By Ashley Tseng
26 June 2014
Children being forced by extreme poverty into wage (as well as slave) labour remains in the second decade of the Twenty-First Century a chilling, global phenomenon.
In its latest report on the issue, “Marking Progress Against Child Labour: Global Estimates and Trends,” the International Labour Organization (ILO) said that in 2012 at least 168 million children were working in conditions that fell under its definition of “unacceptable” or exploitative child labour.
Children, working alongside their mothers, in a brick factory in Bangladesh. (Photo credit: Peter de Ruiter)Almost half of the child-labourers—73 million—were between the ages of 5 and 11. A further 47.4 million were children 12 to 14 years old. (According to the ILO’s definition, only 12- to 14-year-olds who work at least 14 hours per week or are involved in hazardous work are counted as child-labourers). And in 2012 there were 47.5…
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