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{{Short description|Exploitation of children through work}}
{{pp|small=yes}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
[[File:Palestine (4767364519).jpg|280px|thumb|A [[Palestinians|Palestinian]] child labourer at the [[Israeli settlement]] of [[Kalya]] on the [[Dead Sea]]]]
[[File:Bangladesh DSCF5339 FRANCISCO MAGALLON - Visita proyectos ong EDUCO.jpg|thumb|280px|A child labourer in [[Dhaka]], [[Child labour in Bangladesh|Bangladesh]]]]
[[File:Дети -шахтёры.jpg|thumb|280px|Child coal miners in [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]], late 19th century]]
[[File:coaltub.png|right|frame|A succession of laws on child labour, the [[Factory Acts]], were passed in the UK in the 19th century. Children younger than 9 were not allowed to work, those aged 9–16 could work 12 hours per day per the [[Cotton Mills, etc. Act 1819|Cotton Mills Act]]. In 1856, the law permitted child labour past age 9, for 60 hours per week, night or day. In 1901, the permissible child labour age was raised to 12.<ref>{{cite web|author=Laura Del Col|title=The Life of the Industrial Worker in Nineteenth-Century England|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/history/workers1.html |website=Victorian Web }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |pmc=2507680 |pmid=20759953 |volume=2 |issue=2139 |title=The Factory and Workshop Act, 1901 |journal=Br Med J |pages=1871–2 |doi=10.1136/bmj.2.2139.1871 |year=1901}}</ref>]]
[[File:Making Shoes.jpg|thumb|A Chinese child repairing shoes, late 19th century]]
{{Labor|expanded=rights|sp=uk}}
[[File:Child-labour.jpg|thumb|Child labour in Nigeria]]
'''Child labour''' is the [[Exploitation of labour|exploitation]] of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful.<ref>{{cite web|title=What is child labour?|publisher=International Labour Organization|year=2012 |url=http://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang--en/index.htm}}</ref> Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation worldwide,<ref name="UN"/><ref>{{cite web |title=International and national legislation - Child Labour|publisher=International Labour Organization |year=2011|url=http://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/Childdomesticlabour/iInternationalnationallegislation/lang--en/index.htm}}</ref> although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists, family duties, supervised training, and some forms of work undertaken by [[Amish]] children, as well as [[Child work in Indigenous American cultures|by Indigenous children]] in the Americas.<ref name="Labour laws - An Amish exception">{{cite news|title=Labour laws - An Amish exception|newspaper=The Economist|date=5 February 2004 |url=http://www.economist.com/node/2413745}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Larsen|first=P.B. |title=Indigenous and tribal children: assessing child labour and education challenges |publisher=International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), International Labour Office}}</ref><ref name="EUR-Lex">{{cite journal|title= Council Directive 94/33/EC of 22 June 1994 on the protection of young people at work|via=EUR-Lex|date=20 August 1994|journal=[[Official Journal of the European Communities]] |url=https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:1994:216:FULL |volume=37}}</ref>

Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout history. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5–14 from poorer families worked in [[Western world|Western nations]] and their [[Colony|colonies]] alike. These children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories, [[mining]], and services such as [[Newspaper hawker|news boys]]&nbsp;– some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours. With the rise of household income, availability of schools and passage of [[child labour law]]s, the incidence rates of child labour fell.<ref name=ep99/><ref>{{cite book|title=Child Labour in Historical Perspective: 1800-1985|publisher=UNICEF |editor1=Hugh Cunningham |editor2=Pier Paolo Viazzo|year=1996|isbn=978-88-85401-27-3 |url=http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/hisper_childlabour_low.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=23 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151123040832/http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/hisper_childlabour_low.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The World of Child Labour |last=Hindman|first=Hugh|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|year=2009|isbn=978-0-7656-1707-1}}</ref>

{{As of|2023}}, in the world's poorest countries, around one in five children are engaged in child labour, the highest number of whom live in [[Sub-Saharan Africa|sub-saharan Africa]], where more than one in four children are so engaged.<ref name="UNICEF 2023">{{cite web|url=https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-labour/ |title=In the world's poorest countries, slightly more than 1 in 5 children are engaged in child labour|work=[[UNICEF]]|date=June 2023}}</ref> This represents a decline in child labour over the preceding half decade.<ref name="UNICEF Data – Child Labour">{{cite web|title=UNICEF Data – Child Labour |publisher=UNICEF |year=2017 |url=https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-labour/ |access-date=18 April 2018 }}</ref> In 2017, four African nations ([[Mali]], [[Benin]], [[Chad]] and [[Guinea-Bissau]]) witnessed over 50 per cent of children aged 5–14 working.<ref name="UNICEF Data – Child Labour"/> Worldwide agriculture is the largest employer of child labour.<ref name="Child Labour">{{cite news|title=Child Labour|newspaper=The Economist|date=20 December 2005|url=http://www.economist.com/node/5328365?zid=317&ah=8a47fc455a44945580198768fad0fa41}}</ref> The vast majority of child labour is found in [[Rural area|rural]] settings and informal urban economies; children are predominantly employed by their parents, rather than factories.<ref name=ep05/> Poverty and lack of schools are considered the primary cause of child labour.<ref name=ilo2008a/> [[UNICEF]] notes that "boys and girls are equally likely to be involved in child labour", but in different roles, girls being substantially more likely to perform unpaid household labour.<ref name="UNICEF 2023"/>

Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the [[World Bank]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Norberg |first=Johan |date=2007 |url=http://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/94943fabd8c9427492a71d6324e2d23a/varldens-valfard-fyra-decennier-som-forandrade-planeten |title=Världens välfärd |location=Stockholm |publisher=Government Offices of Sweden |page=58 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20160206191732/http://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/94943fabd8c9427492a71d6324e2d23a/varldens-valfard-fyra-decennier-som-forandrade-planeten |archive-date=6 February 2016 |isbn= 978-91-85935-00-0 |language=sv}}</ref> Nevertheless, the total number of child labourers remains high, with UNICEF and [[ILO]] acknowledging an estimated 168 million children aged 5–17 worldwide were involved in child labour in 2013.<ref>{{cite web|title=To eliminate child labour, "attack it at its roots" UNICEF says|publisher=UNICEF|year=2013|url=http://www.unicef.org/media/media_70610.html|access-date=4 March 2014|archive-date=25 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225024242/https://www.unicef.org/media/media_70610.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== History ==
===Preindustrial societies===
Child labour forms an intrinsic part of pre-industrial economies.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |last=Diamond |first=Jared |title=The World Until Yesterday |date=2012 |isbn=9780670024810}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=E. P. |title=The Making of the English Working Class |publisher=Penguin |year=1968}}{{page needed|date=November 2022}}</ref> In [[Pre-industrial society|pre-industrial societies]], there is rarely a concept of childhood in the modern sense. Children often begin to actively participate in activities such as [[Parenting|child rearing]], hunting and farming as soon as they are competent. In many societies, children as young as 13 are seen as adults and engage in the same activities as adults.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

The work of children was important in pre-industrial societies, as children needed to provide their labour for their survival and that of their group.<ref>{{Cite web |title=UNICEF |url=https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/hisper_childlabour.pdf}}</ref> Pre-industrial societies were characterised by low productivity and short [[life expectancy]]; preventing children from participating in productive work would be more harmful to their welfare and that of their group in the long run. In pre-industrial societies, there was little need for children to attend school. This is especially the case in non-literate societies. Most pre-industrial skill and knowledge were amenable to being passed down through direct mentoring or [[apprenticing]] by competent adults.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

<gallery>
File:Mill Children in Macon 2.jpg|Child labourers, [[Macon, Georgia]], 1909
File:Child Labor in New Jersey United States 1923.jpg|Children working in home-based assembly operations in United States (1923)
File:Abolish child slavery.jpg|Two girls protesting child labour (by calling it child slavery) in the 1909 New York City [[Labor Day]] parade.
File:Child labor, cranberry bog, Burlington County, New Jersey, 8a10151.jpg|[[Arthur Rothstein]], ''Child Labor, Cranberry Bog'', 1939. [[Brooklyn Museum]].
</gallery>

===Industrial Revolution===
[[File:Child Labor in United States 1908, 12 hour night shifts.jpg|thumb|Children going to a 12-hour night shift in the United States (1908)]]
[[File:Child Labor in United States 1912a.jpg|thumb|The early 20th century witnessed many home-based enterprises involving child labour. An example is shown above from New York in 1912.]]
{{wikisource|The Vow of the Peacock and Other Poems/The Factory|"The Factory", a poem by L. E. L.}}

With the onset of the [[Industrial Revolution]] in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labour, including child labour. Industrial cities such as [[Birmingham]], [[Manchester]], and [[Liverpool]] rapidly grew from small villages into large cities and improving [[child mortality]] rates. These cities drew in the population that was rapidly growing due to increased agricultural output. This process was replicated in other industrialising countries.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Walker |first=Steven |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7yo1EAAAQBAJ&dq=These+cities+drew+in+the+population+that+was+rapidly+growing+due+to+increased+agricultural+output.+This+process+was+replicated+in+other+industrialising+countries&pg=PA76 |title=Children Forsaken |date=2021-07-12 |publisher=Critical Publishing |isbn=978-1-913453-84-8 |language=en}}</ref>

The [[Victorian era]] in particular became notorious for the conditions under which children were employed.<ref>Laura Del Col, West Virginia University, "[http://www.victorianweb.org/history/workers1.html The Life of the Industrial Worker in Nineteenth-Century England]"</ref> Children as young as four were employed in production factories and mines working long hours in dangerous, often fatal, working conditions.<ref name="Thompson">{{cite book |first=E. P. |last=Thompson |title=The Making of the English Working Class |publisher=Penguin |year=1968 |pages=366–367}}</ref> In [[coal mine]]s, children would crawl through tunnels too narrow and low for adults.<ref>{{cite book |first=Jane |last=Humphries |title=Childhood And Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution |date=2010 |page=33 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521847568}}</ref> Children also worked as errand boys, [[crossing sweeper]]s, shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers and other cheap goods.<ref name="dan" /> Some children undertook work as [[apprentice]]s to respectable trades, such as building or as [[domestic servant]]s (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid-18th century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in the summer and 52 hours in winter, while servants worked 80-hour weeks.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pal |first1=Jadab Kumar |last2=Chakraborty |first2=Sonali |last3=Tewari |first3=Hare Ram |last4=Chandra |first4=Vinod |date=March 2016 |title=The working hours of unpaid child workers in the handloom industry in India |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/issj.12121 |journal=International Social Science Journal |volume=66 |issue=219–220 |pages=197–204 |doi=10.1111/issj.12121 |issn=0020-8701}}</ref>

Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship. The children of the poor were expected to contribute to their family income.<ref name="dan">{{cite web |first=Barbara |last=Daniels |url=http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/articles/poverty.html |title=Poverty and Families in the Victorian Era |website=Hidden Lives Revealed |date=March 2003 |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref> In 19th-century Great Britain, one-third of poor families were without a [[breadwinner]], as a result of death or abandonment, obliging many children to work from a young age. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered [[cotton mill]]s were described as children.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.galbithink.org/child.htm |title=Child Labour and the Division of Labour in the Early English Cotton Mills |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060109031609/http://www.galbithink.org/child.htm |archive-date=9 January 2006 |url-status=live |access-date=3 April 2024 |first=Douglas A. |last=Galbi |date=13 June 1994}}</ref> A high number of children also worked as [[prostitute]]s.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist8.html |title=Child Labour | author= David Cody |publisher=The Victorian Web|access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref> The author [[Charles Dickens]] worked at the age of 12 in a [[Blacking (polish)|blacking]] factory, with his family in a [[debtor's prison]].<ref name=Foster23>{{harvnb|Forster|2006|pp=23–24}}.</ref>

Child wages were often low, the wages were as little as 10–20% of an adult male's wage.<ref>Douglas A. Galbi. Centre for History and Economics, King's College, Cambridge CB2 1ST.</ref>{{better source needed|reason=This is a person, not a work. People as such aren't [[WP:V|verifiable]] in perpetuity and so aren't [[WP:IRS|reliable sources]]|date=May 2019}} [[Karl Marx]] was an outspoken opponent of child labour,<ref>In ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'', Part II: "Proletariats and Communists" and ''[[Capital, Volume I]]'', Part III</ref> saying British industries "could but live by sucking blood, and children's blood too", and that U.S. capital was financed by the "capitalized blood of children".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0604/att-0138/01-PoliticalEconOfTheDead.pdf|last=Neocleous|first=Mark|title=The Political Economy of the Dead: Marx's Vampires|access-date=6 November 2013|archive-date=12 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150412205331/http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0604/att-0138/01-PoliticalEconOfTheDead.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite speech|last=Marx|first=Karl|title=Inaugural Address of the International Working Men's Association|year=1864 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/10/27.htm}}</ref> [[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]] castigated child labour in her 1835 poem "The Factory", portions of which she pointedly included in her 18th Birthday Tribute to Princess Victoria in 1837.

Throughout the second half of the 19th century, child labour began to decline in industrialised societies due to regulation and economic factors because of the Growth of [[trade unions]]. The regulation of child labour began from the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution. The first act to regulate child labour in Britain was passed in 1803. As early as 1802 and 1819 [[Factory Acts]] were passed to regulate the working hours of [[workhouse]] children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a Royal Commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11–18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9–11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine were no longer permitted to work. This act however only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to [[Factories Act 1847|another act in 1847]] limiting both adults and children to 10-hour working days. [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury|Lord Shaftesbury]] was an outspoken advocate of regulating child labour.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

As technology improved and proliferated, there was a greater need for educated employees. This saw an increase in schooling, with the eventual introduction of [[compulsory schooling]]. Improved technology, automation and further legislation significantly reduced child labour particularly in western Europe and the U.S.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

===Early 20th century===
{| class="wikitable floatright" style="text-align: center;"
|+ Percentage children working in England and Wales<ref>{{cite book|title=Child Labour in Historical Perspective: 1800-1985|publisher=UNICEF|author=Hugh Cunningham |chapter=Combating Child Labour: The British Experience |editor1=Hugh Cunningham |editor2=Pier Paolo Viazzo|year=1996|pages=41–53 |isbn=978-88-85401-27-3|url=http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/hisper_childlabour_low.pdf#page=43|archive-date=23 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151123040832/http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/hisper_childlabour_low.pdf#page=43|url-status=dead}}</ref>
|-
! Census year !! % boys aged 10–14<br />as child labour
|-
| 1881 || 22.9
|-
| 1891 || 26.0
|-
| 1901 || 21.9
|-
| 1911 || 18.3
|-
|colspan="2" style="text-align: left;" |<small>''Note'': These are averages; child labour in [[Lancashire]] was 80%</small>
|-
|colspan="2" style="text-align: left;" |<small>''Source'': Census of England and Wales</small>
|}

In the early 20th century, thousands of boys were employed in glass making industries. [[Glass production|Glass making]] was a dangerous and tough job especially without the current technologies. The process of making glass includes intense heat to melt glass ({{convert|3133|F}}). When the boys are at work, they are exposed to this heat. This could cause eye trouble, lung ailments, heat exhaustion, cuts, and burns. Since workers were paid by the piece, they had to work productively for hours without a break. Since furnaces had to be constantly burning, there were night shifts from 5:00&nbsp;pm to 3:00&nbsp;am. Many factory owners preferred boys under 16 years of age.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Russell |last1=Freedman |first2=Lewis |last2=Hine|title=Kids at work: Lewis Hine and the crusade against child labour|year=1994|publisher=Clarion Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0395587034|pages=[https://archive.org/details/kidsatworklewish00free/page/54 54–57]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/kidsatworklewish00free/page/54}}</ref>

An estimated 1.7 million children under the age of fifteen were employed in American industry by 1900.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://webinstituteforteachers.org/%7Ebobfinn/2003/industrialrevolution.htm |title=The Industrial Revolution |publisher=Web Institute for Teachers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080804084618/http://webinstituteforteachers.org/~bobfinn/2003/industrialrevolution.htm |archive-date=4 August 2008 }}</ref>

In 1910, over 2 million children in the same age group were employed in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hine-photos/ |title=Teaching With Documents: Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labour |website=The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration |date=15 August 2016 |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref> This included children who rolled cigarettes,<ref>{{cite web|title=Virginia: Cigarette Rollers|website=userpages.umbc.edu |url=http://userpages.umbc.edu/~arubin/HIST402_SP2007/87C1FBEB4AC722BB805B2CABD2BC32D4.html |first=Matthew |last=Vreatt}}</ref> engaged in factory work, worked as bobbin [[doffer]]s in textile mills, worked in coal mines and were employed in canneries.<ref>[http://userpages.umbc.edu/~arubin/HIST402_SP2007/9B72B3F098F81A13DAA017F591A2D33E.html Child Labour in the South: Essays and Links to photographs from the Lewis Hine Collection at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County].</ref> [[Lewis Hine]]'s photographs of child labourers in the 1910s powerfully evoked the plight of working children in the American south. Hine took these photographs between 1908 and 1917 as the staff photographer for the [[National Child Labor Committee]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Hine, Lewis|last=Warren |first=L. |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography |location=[[Abingdon-on-Thames]] |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cFVsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA699 |page=699 |isbn=9781135205430}}</ref>

====Household enterprises====
Factories and mines were not the only places where child labour was prevalent in the early 20th century. Home-based manufacturing across the United States and Europe employed children as well.<ref name=ep99>{{cite book |title=The Global Construction of Gender - Home based work in Political Economy of 20th Century|last=Prügl|first=Elisabeth|pages=25–31, 50–59|isbn=978-0231115612|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=1999}}</ref> Governments and reformers argued that labour in factories must be regulated and the state had an obligation to provide welfare for poor. Legislation that followed had the effect of moving work out of factories into urban homes. Families and women, in particular, preferred it because it allowed them to generate income while taking care of household duties.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

Home-based manufacturing operations were active year-round. Families willingly deployed their children in these income generating home enterprises.<ref>{{cite book|title=Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labour|last=Freedman|first=Russell|publisher=Sandpiper|year=1998|isbn=978-0395797266}}</ref> In many cases, men worked from home. In France, over 58% of garment workers operated out of their homes; in Germany, the number of full-time home operations nearly doubled between 1882 and 1907; and in the United States, millions of families operated out of home seven days a week, year round to produce garments, shoes, artificial flowers, feathers, match boxes, toys, umbrellas and other products. Children aged 5–14 worked alongside the parents. Home-based operations and child labour in Australia, Britain, Austria and other parts of the world was common. Rural areas similarly saw families deploying their children in agriculture. In 1946, [[Frieda S. Miller]] – then Director of the [[United States Department of Labor]] – told the [[International Labour Organization]] (ILO) that these home-based operations offered "low wages, long hours, child labour, unhealthy and insanitary working conditions".<ref name=ep99/><ref>{{cite book|title=Miller, Frieda S. Papers, 1909-1973|last=Miller|first=Frieda |publisher=Radcliff College |year=1979|url=http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00235|access-date=15 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515035148/http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00235 |archive-date=15 May 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=The Great Agricultural Transition: Crisis, Change, and Social Consequences of Twentieth Century US Farming|author1=Linda Lobao |author2=Katherine Meyer |journal=Annual Review of Sociology|volume= 27|year=2001|pages=103–124|jstor=2678616|doi=10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.103}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=World Market, State, and Family Farm: Social Bases of Household Production in the Era of Wage Labour|last=Friedmann|first=Harriet|journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History|year=1978|volume=20|issue=4|pages=545–586|doi=10.1017/S001041750001255X| s2cid=153765098 }}</ref>

===21st century===
{{See also|Children's rights}}
[[File:Enfants au travail dans le monde.png|thumb|upright=2.0|Map for child labour worldwide in the 10–14 age group, in 2003, per World Bank data.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://data.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/wdi05fulltext.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130810035500/http://data.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/wdi05fulltext.pdf|url-status=dead|chapter=Table 2.8: Assessing Vulnerability |pages=77–79 |title=2005 World Development Indicators |publisher=The World Bank|archivedate=10 August 2013}}</ref> The data is incomplete, as many countries do not collect or report child labour data (coloured gray). The colour code is as follows: yellow (<10% of children working), green (10–20%), orange (20–30%), red (30–40%) and black (>40%). Some nations such as [[Guinea-Bissau]], [[Mali]] and [[Ethiopia]] have more than half of all children aged 5–14 at work to help provide for their families.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Child Statistics|website=UNICEF DATA |url=http://www.childinfo.org/labour_countrydata.php|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120630033018/|archive-date=30 June 2012}}</ref>]]

Child labour is still common in many parts of the world. Estimates for child labour vary. It ranges between 250 and 304 million, if children aged 5–17 involved in any economic activity are counted. If light occasional work is excluded, ILO estimates there were 153 million child labourers aged 5–14 worldwide in 2008. This is about 20 million less than ILO estimate for child labourers in 2004. Some 60 per cent of the child labour was involved in agricultural activities such as farming, dairy, fisheries and forestry. Another 25% of child labourers were in service activities such as retail, hawking goods, restaurants, load and transfer of goods, storage, picking and recycling trash, polishing shoes, domestic help, and other services. The remaining 15% laboured in assembly and manufacturing in informal economy, home-based enterprises, factories, mines, packaging salt, operating machinery, and such operations.<ref>{{cite news |title=Child labour in Kyrgyz coal mines |work=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6955202.stm |access-date=2007-08-25 | date=24 August 2007 |first=Natalia |last=Antelava}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Global child labour developments: Measuring trends from 2004 to 2008|author1=Yacouba Diallo |author2=Frank Hagemann |author3=Alex Etienne |author4=Yonca Gurbuzer |author5=Farhad Mehran |publisher=ILO|year=2010|isbn=978-92-2-123522-4}}</ref><ref name="unicef">{{cite web |title=The State of the World's Children 1997 |work=UNICEF |url=http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/report/ |access-date=2007-04-15 |archive-date=9 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110809110938/http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/report/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Two out of three child workers work alongside their parents, in unpaid family work situations. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants. Child labour predominantly occurs in the rural areas (70%) and informal urban sector (26%).

Contrary to popular belief, most child labourers are employed by their parents rather than in manufacturing or formal economy. Children who work for pay or in-kind compensation are usually found in rural settings as opposed to urban centres. Less than 3% of child labour aged 5–14 across the world work outside their household, or away from their parents.<ref name="ep05" />

Child labour accounts for 22% of the workforce in Asia, 32% in Africa, 17% in Latin America, 1% in the US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/237384/toolkitfr/pdf/facts.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070717172418/http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/237384/toolkitfr/pdf/facts.pdf|url-status=unfit|title=Facts and figures on child labour|archive-date=2007-07-17|website=info.worldbank.org}}</ref> The proportion of child labourers varies greatly among countries and even regions inside those countries. Africa has the highest percentage of children aged 5–17 employed as child labour, and a total of over 65 million. Asia, with its larger population, has the largest number of children employed as child labour at about 114 million. Latin America and the Caribbean region have lower overall population density, but at 14 million child labourers has high incidence rates too.<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Tackling child labour: From commitment to action|title=[[International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour]] |publisher= ILO|year=2012|isbn=978-92-2-126374-6|chapter-url=http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_181875/lang--en/index.htm}}</ref>

[[File:Tyre shop worker1.jpg|thumb|upright|left|A boy repairing a tire in [[Gambia]]]]
Accurate present day child labour information is difficult to obtain because of disagreements between data sources as to what constitutes child labour. In some countries, government policy contributes to this difficulty. For example, the overall extent of child labour in China is unclear due to the government categorising child labour data as "highly secret".<ref>{{cite web|title=Children's Rights: China|publisher=Law Library of Congress, United States|year=2012|url=https://www.loc.gov/law/help/child-rights/china.php#Child%20Labour%20and%20Exploitation}}</ref> China has enacted regulations to prevent child labour; still, the practice of child labour is reported to be a persistent problem within China, generally in agriculture and low-skill service sectors as well as small workshops and manufacturing enterprises.<ref>{{cite web|title=The dark side of labour in China|last=Lepillez |first=Karine|year=2009 |url=http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/slavery/china.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=China: End Child Labour in State Schools |publisher=Human Rights Watch |date=4 December 2007 |url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/02/china-end-child-labour-state-schools |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150111234752/http://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/02/china-end-child-labour-state-schools |archive-date=11 January 2015 }}</ref>

In 2014, the [[U.S. Department of Labor]] issued a ''[[List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor]]'', where China was attributed 12 goods, the majority of which were produced by both underage children and indentured labourers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods/|title=List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor|website=www.dol.gov |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20140708063021/https://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods/ |archive-date=8 July 2014}}</ref> The report listed electronics, garments, toys, and coal, among other goods.

The Maplecroft Child Labour Index 2012 survey<ref>{{cite web|title=Conflict and economic downturn cause global increase in reported child labour violations – 40% of countries now rated 'extreme risk' by Maplecroft|date=5 January 2012|publisher=Maplecroft|url=http://maplecroft.com/about/news/child_labour_2012.html |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20120111090517/http://maplecroft.com/about/news/child_labour_2012.html |archive-date=11 January 2012}}</ref> reports that 76 countries pose extreme child labour complicity risks for companies operating worldwide. The ten highest risk countries in 2012, ranked in decreasing order, were: Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Burundi, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Of the major growth economies, Maplecroft ranked Philippines 25th riskiest, India 27th, China 36th, Vietnam 37th, Indonesia 46th, and Brazil 54th, all of them rated to involve extreme risks of child labour uncertainties, to corporations seeking to invest in developing world and import products from emerging markets.

==Causes==
[[File:Young girl working.jpg|thumb|upright|Young girl working on a loom in [[Aït Benhaddou]], [[Morocco]], in May 2008]]
[[File:Rice Cultivation Vietnam.1024x768.jpg|thumb|Agriculture deploys 70% of the world's child labour.<ref name="Child Labour" /> Above, child worker on a rice farm in [[Vietnam]].]]

The ILO suggests that poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour.<ref name="ilo2008a">{{cite web|title=Child labour - causes|year=2008|publisher=ILO, United Nations |url=http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/eurpro/moscow/areas/ipec/causes.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090411145422/http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/eurpro/moscow/areas/ipec/causes.htm|archive-date=11 April 2009}}</ref> For impoverished households, income from a child's work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 and 40% of the household income. Other scholars such as Harsch on African child labour, and Edmonds and Pavcnik on global child labour have reached the same conclusion.<ref name="ep05">{{cite journal|title=Child Labour in the Global Economy|author1=Eric V. Edmonds|author2=Nina Pavcnik|journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives|volume=19|number=1|date=Winter 2005|pages=199–220|doi=10.1257/0895330053147895|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.un.org/en/africarenewal/vol15no3/153chil4.htm|last=Harsch|first=Ernest |journal=Africa Recovery|title=Child labour rooted in Africa's poverty|volume=15|number=3|date=October 2001|pages=14–15 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20120415095202/https://www.un.org/en/africarenewal/vol15no3/153chil4.htm |archive-date=15 April 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Basu |first1=Kaushik |last2=Van |first2=Phan Hoang |date=June 1998 |title=The Economics of Child Labour |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/116842 |journal=American Economic Review |volume=88 |issue=3 |pages=412–427|jstor=116842 }}</ref>

Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as affordable schools and quality education, according to the ILO,<ref name="ilo2008a" /> is another major factor driving children to harmful labour. Children work because they have nothing better to do. Many communities, particularly rural areas where between 60 and 70% of child labour is prevalent, do not possess adequate school facilities. Even when schools are sometimes available, they are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really worth it.<ref name="ep05" /><ref>{{cite web |title=The Relationship between Education and Child Work |last=Boyden|first=Jo|publisher=UNICEF |date=September 1994 |url=http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/crs9.pdf |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref>

===Cultural factors===
In European history when child labour was common, as well as in contemporary child labour of modern world, certain cultural beliefs have grounded it. Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children. In many cultures, particular where the informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents' footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age. Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling, and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services.<ref name="ilo2008a" /><ref>{{cite web|title=CHILD LABOUR: ISSUES, CAUSES AND INTERVENTIONS |first1=Faraaz |last1=Siddiqi |first2=Harry Anthony |last2=Patrinos |publisher=The World Bank |year=1999 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arvind-Singh-21/post/What_are_the_reasons_behind_the_creation_of_child_labours_How_it_can_be_solved/attachment/5ac0c8434cde260d15d626fc/AS%3A610574106910725%401522583619297/download/Child_Labor_issues.pdf |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Child Labour in Latin America: Poverty as Cause and Effect |last=Tauson |first=Michaelle |year=2009 |url=http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/latinamerica2/digest-human%20rights%20in%20latin%20america%20vol%202-childlabour.pdf }}{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Child Labour and Cultural Relativism: From 19th Century America to 21st Century Nepal|last=D'Avolio|first=Michele|journal=Pace International Law Review|date=Spring 2004|volume=16|issue=1|pages=109–145 |doi=10.58948/2331-3536.1160 |s2cid=152411350 |url=http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pilr/vol16/iss1/5/|doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Macroeconomics===
Biggeri and Mehrotra have studied the macroeconomic factors that encourage child labour. They focus their study on five Asian nations including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. They suggest<ref name="mbsm">{{cite book|title=Asian Informal Workers: Global Risks, Local Protection|first1=Mario |last1=Biggeri |first2=Santosh |last2=Mehrotra |publisher=Routledge|year=2007|isbn=978-0-415-38275-5}}</ref> that child labour is a serious problem in all five, but it is not a new problem. Macroeconomic causes encouraged widespread child labour across the world, over most of human history. They suggest that the causes for child labour include both the demand and the supply side. While poverty and unavailability of good schools explain the child labour supply side, they suggest that the growth of low-paying informal economy rather than higher paying formal economy is amongst the causes of the demand side. Other scholars too suggest that inflexible labour market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand and acceptability of child labour.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Policy Analysis of Child Labour: A Comparative Study|first1=Christiaan |last1=Grootaert |first2=Harry Anthony |last2=Patrinos |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=1999|isbn=978-0312221225}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Child Labour and the Division of Labour in the Early English Cotton Mills|last=Galbi|first=Douglas |journal=Journal of Population Economics|year=1997|volume=10 |issue=4|pages= 357–375 |url=http://www.galbithink.org/child.pdf|doi=10.1007/s001480050048|pmid=12293082|s2cid=5858814}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Brown, D. K. |author2=Deardorff, A. V. |author3=Stern, R. M.|title=Child Labour: Theory, Evidence, and Policy (Chapter 3, International Labour Standards: History, Theory, and Policy Options)|pages=194–247|doi=10.1002/9780470754818.ch3|isbn=9781405105552|chapter=Child Labor: Theory, Evidence, and Policy|year=2003| url=http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/rsie/workingpapers/Papers451-475/r474.pdf |chapter-url=http://ase.tufts.edu/econ/papers/200111.pdf}}</ref>

== By country ==
{{See also|List of countries by child labour rate}}[[File:Working children out of school vs Hours worked by children, OWID.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|Working children out of school vs hours worked by children<ref>{{cite web |title=Working children out of school vs Hours worked by children |url=https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/working-children-out-of-school-ages-7-14-vs-hours-worked-by-children-ages-7-14 |website=Our World in Data |access-date=5 March 2020}}</ref>]]

===Colonial empires===
Systematic use of child labour was commonplace in the colonies of European powers between 1650 and 1950. In Africa, colonial administrators encouraged traditional kin-ordered modes of production, that is hiring a household for work not just the adults. Millions of children worked in colonial agricultural plantations, mines and domestic service industries.<ref name="bass04">{{cite book|title=Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa|last=Bass |first=Loretta|year=2004|isbn=978-1588262868|pages=[https://archive.org/details/childlaborinsubs00lore/page/30 30–43]|publisher=Lynne Rienner Publications|url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/childlaborinsubs00lore/page/30}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The World of Child Labour|first=Beverly |last=Grier |editor-first=Hugh |editor-last=Hindman|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|year=2009|pages=173–177|isbn=978-0-7656-1707-1}}</ref> Sophisticated schemes were promulgated where children in these colonies between the ages of 5 and 14 were hired as an apprentice without pay in exchange for learning a craft. A system of Pauper Apprenticeship came into practice in the 19th century where the colonial master neither needed the native parents' nor child's approval to assign a child to labour, away from parents, at a distant farm owned by a different colonial master.<ref>{{cite book|title=Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955 (Studies in Legal History)|last=Hay|first=Douglas|year=2007|isbn=978-0807828779|pages=38–46|publisher= University of North Carolina Press}}</ref> Other schemes included 'earn-and-learn' programs where children would work and thereby learn. Britain for example passed a law, the so-called Masters and Servants Act of 1899, followed by Tax and Pass Law, to encourage child labour in colonies particularly in Africa. These laws offered the native people the legal ownership to some of the native land in exchange for making labour of wife and children available to colonial government's needs such as in farms and as ''picannins''.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

Beyond laws, new taxes were imposed on colonies. One of these taxes was the [[tax per head|Head Tax]] in the [[British Empire|British]] and [[French colonial empire|French]] colonial empires. The tax was imposed on everyone older than 8 years, in some colonies. To pay these taxes and cover living expenses, children in colonial households had to work.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Child labour in the Gold Coast: the economics of work, education and the family in late-colonial Africa, c.1940-57|last=Lord|first=Jack |journal=The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth|volume=4|issue=1|year=2011|pages=88–115 |url=https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/11595/1/Jack_Lord%2C_Child_Labor_in_the_Gold_Coast.pdf|doi=10.1353/hcy.2011.0005|s2cid=143683964}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Invisible Hands: Child Labour and the State in Colonial Zimbabwe by Beverly Grier (a review)|last=Wells|first=Karen|journal=The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth|volume=1|number=3|date=Fall 2008|pages=481–483 |doi= 10.1353/hcy.0.0025 |s2cid=144242016}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Head Tax, Social Structure and Rural Incomes in Cameroun, 1922-1937|last=Guyer|first=Jane|s2cid=143600106|journal=Cahiers d'Études Africaines|volume=20 |issue=79|year=1980|pages=305–329|doi=10.3406/cea.1980.2338 |hdl=2144/40432|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

In southeast Asian colonies, such as Hong Kong, child labour such as the ''[[Mui tsai]]'' (妹仔), was rationalised as a cultural tradition and ignored by British authorities.<ref>{{cite book|title=Child slavery in Hong Kong: the mui tsai system|year=1930|author=Hugh Lyttleton Haslewood|publisher=Sheldon Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Theorizing the Chinese: The MUI TSAI controversy and construction of transnational chineseness in Hong Kong and British Malaya|last=Yuen|first=Karen|journal=New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies|volume=6|number=2|date=December 2004|pages=95–110 |url=http://www.nzasia.org.nz/downloads/NZJAS-Dec04/6_2_6.pdf|access-date=17 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805150302/http://www.nzasia.org.nz/downloads/NZJAS-Dec04/6_2_6.pdf |archive-date=5 August 2020|url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[Dutch East India Company]] officials rationalised their child labour abuses with, "it is a way to save these children from a worse fate." Christian mission schools in regions stretching from Zambia to Nigeria too required work from children, and in exchange provided religious education, not [[secular education]].<ref name="bass04" /> Elsewhere, the Canadian Dominion Statutes in form of so-called Breaches of Contract Act, stipulated jail terms for uncooperative child workers.<ref>{{cite book|title=Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955 (Studies in Legal History)|last=Hay|first=Douglas|year=2007|isbn=978-0807828779|pages=203–207|publisher= University of North Carolina Press}}</ref>

Proposals to regulate child labour began as early as 1786.<ref>{{cite journal |author-link=Steve Charnovitz |first=Steve |last=Charnovitz |title=Child Labour: What to do? |journal=Journal of Commerce |date=15 August 1996}}</ref>

=== Africa ===
{{main|Child labour in Africa}}
[[File:Kamerun children weaving.jpg|thumb|Child labour in the former German colony of [[Kamerun]], 1919]]
Children working at a young age has been a consistent theme throughout Africa. Many children began first working in the home to help their parents run the family farm.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=11}} Children in Africa today are often forced into exploitative labour due to family debt and other financial factors, leading to ongoing poverty.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=11}} Other types of domestic child labour include working in commercial [[plantation]]s, begging, and other sales such as boot shining.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=15}} In total, there is an estimated five million children who are currently working in the field of agriculture which steadily increases during the time of harvest. Along with 30% of children who are picking coffee, there are an estimated 25,000 school age children who work year round.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=16}}

[[File:Child labour in Shamwana Katanga, Congo.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Little girl carrying heavy items. Katanga region, DRC; Congo, Africa.]]
What industries children work in depends on whether they grew up in a [[rural area]] or an [[urban area]]. Children who were born in urban areas often found themselves working for street vendors, washing cars, helping in construction sites, weaving clothing, and sometimes even working as exotic dancers.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=15}} While children who grew up in rural areas would work on farms doing physical labour, working with animals, and selling crops.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=15}} Many children can also be found working in hazardous environments, with some using bare hands, stones and hammers to take apart [[Cathode-ray tube|CRT]]-based televisions and computer monitors.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.muntaka.com/children-of-agbogbloshie/|title=Urban Outcasts: Children of Agbogbloshie|last=Chasant|first=Muntaka|date=2020-02-17|website=MUNTAKA.COM|access-date=2020-02-17}}</ref> Of all the child workers, the most serious cases involved street children and trafficked children due to the physical and emotional abuse they endured by their employers.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=15}} To address the issue of child labour, the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child Act was implemented in 1959.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=12}} Yet due to poverty, lack of education and ignorance, the legal actions were not/are not wholly enforced or accepted in Africa.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=17}}

[[File:Against child labor.jpg|thumb|Young street vendors in [[Benin]]]]
Other legal factors that have been implemented to end and reduce child labour includes the global response that came into force in 1979 by the declaration of the International Year of the Child.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=17}} Along with the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations, these two declarations worked on many levels to eliminate child labour.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=17}} Although many actions have been taken to end this epidemic, child labour in Africa is still an issue today due to the unclear definition of adolescence and how much time is needed for children to engage in activities that are crucial for their development. Another issue that often comes into play is the link between what constitutes as child labour within the household due to the cultural acceptance of children helping run the family business.{{sfn|Agbu|2009|p=18}} In the end, there is a consistent challenge for the national government to strengthen its grip politically on child labour, and to increase education and awareness on the issue of children working below the legal age limit. With children playing an important role in the African economy, child labour still plays an important role for many in the 20th century.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

=== Australia ===
From European settlement in 1788, child convicts were occasionally sent to Australia where they were made to work. Child labour was not as excessive in Australia as in Britain. With a low population, agricultural productivity was higher and families did not face starvation as in established industrialised countries. Australia also did not have significant industry until the later part of the 20th century, when child labour laws and compulsory schooling had developed under the influence of Britain. From the 1870s, child labour was restricted by compulsory schooling.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

Child labour laws in Australia differ from state to state. Generally, children are allowed to work at any age, but restrictions exist for children under 15 years of age. These restrictions apply to work hours and the type of work that children can perform. In all states, children are obliged to attend school until a minimum leaving age, 15 years of age in all states except Tasmania and Queensland where the [[School-leaving age|leaving age]] is 17.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fairwork.gov.au/find-help-for/young-workers-and-students/what-age-can-i-start-work|title=Minimum working age|website=Fair Work Ombudsman}}</ref>

=== Brazil ===
{{main|Child labour in Brazil}}
[[File:Crianca Lixao 20080220 - Marcello Casal Jr. - Agencia Brasil.jpg|thumb|[[Child labour in Brazil]], leaving after collecting recyclables from a landfill]]

Child labour has been a consistent struggle for children in [[Brazil]] ever since Portuguese colonisation in the region began in 1500.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=419}} Work that many children took part in was not always visible, legal, or paid. Free or slave labour was a common occurrence for many youths and was a part of their everyday lives as they grew into adulthood.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=417}} Yet due to there being no clear definition of how to classify what a child or youth is, there has been little historical documentation of child labour during the colonial period. Due to this lack of documentation, it is hard to determine just how many children were used for what kinds of work before the nineteenth century.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=419}} The first documentation of child labour in Brazil occurred during the time of indigenous societies and slave labour where it was found that children were forcibly working on tasks that exceeded their emotional and physical limits.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=418}} Armando Dias, for example, died in November 1913 whilst still very young, a victim of an electric shock when entering the textile industry where he worked. Boys and girls were victims of industrial accidents on a daily basis.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=424}}

In Brazil, the minimum working age has been identified as fourteen due to constitutional amendments that passed in 1934, 1937, and 1946.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=428}} Yet due to a change in the [[dictatorship]] by the military in the 1980s, the minimum age restriction was reduced to twelve but was reviewed due to reports of dangerous and hazardous working conditions in 1988. This led to the minimum age being raised once again to 14. Another set of restrictions was passed in 1998 that restricted the kinds of work youth could partake in, such as work that was considered hazardous like running construction equipment, or certain kinds of factory work.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=428}} Although many steps were taken to reduce the risk and occurrence of child labour, there is still a high number of children and adolescents working under the age of fourteen in Brazil. It was not until recently in the 1980s that it was discovered that almost nine million children in Brazil were working illegally and not partaking in traditional childhood activities that help to develop important life experiences.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=429}}

Brazilian census data (PNAD, 1999) indicate that 2.55 million 10- to 14-year-olds were illegally holding jobs. They were joined by 3.7 million 15- to 17-year-olds and about 375,000 5- to 9-year-olds.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} Due to the raised age restriction of 14, at least half of the recorded young workers had been employed illegally, which led to many not being protected by important labour laws.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} Although substantial time has passed since the time of regulated child labour, there are still many children working illegally in Brazil. Many children are used by drug cartels to sell and carry drugs, guns, and other illegal substances because of their perception of innocence. This type of work that youth are taking part in is very dangerous due to the physical and psychological implications that come with these jobs. Yet despite the hazards that come with working with drug dealers, there has been an increase in this area of employment throughout the country.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=421}}

=== Britain ===
Many factors played a role in Britain's long-term economic growth, such as the [[Industrial Revolution]] in the late 1700s and the prominent presence of child labour during the industrial age.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=121}} Children who worked at an early age were often not forced; but did so because they needed to help their family survive financially. Due to poor employment opportunities for many parents, sending their children to work on farms and in factories was a way to help feed and support the family.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=121}} Child labour first started to occur in England when household businesses were turned into local labour markets that mass-produced the once homemade goods. Because children often helped produce the goods out of their homes, working in a factory to make those same goods was a simple change for many of these youths.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=121}} Although there are many counts of children under the age of ten working for factories, the majority of children workers were between the ages of ten and fourteen.

Another factor that influenced child labour was the demographic changes that occurred in the eighteenth century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Honeyman |first1=Katrina |title=Child Workers in England, 1780-1820: Parish Apprentices and the Making of the Early Industrial Labour Force |date=2007 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |isbn=978-0-7546-6272-3 |page=3 }}</ref> By the end of the eighteenth century, 20 per cent of the population was made up of children between the ages of 5 and 14. Due to this substantial shift in available workers, and the development of the industrial revolution, children began to work earlier in life in companies outside of the home.{{sfn|Honeyman|2016|p=157}} Yet, even though there was an increase of child labour in factories such as cotton textiles, there were large numbers of children working in the field of [[agriculture]] and domestic production.{{sfn|Honeyman|2016|p=157}}

With such a high percentage of children working, the rising of illiteracy, and the lack of a formal education became a widespread issue for many children who worked to provide for their families.{{sfn|Honeyman|2016|p=163}} Due to this problematic trend, many parents developed a change of opinion when deciding whether or not to send their children to work. Other factors that lead to the decline of child labour included financial changes in the economy, changes in the development of technology, raised wages, and continuous regulations on factory legislation.{{sfn|Honeyman|2016|p=169}}

In 1933 Britain adopted legislation restricting the use of children under 14 in employment. The [[Children and Young Persons Act 1933]], defined the term ''child'' as anyone of compulsory school age (age sixteen). In general no child may be employed under the age of fifteen years, or fourteen years for light work.<ref>{{cite web |title=Children's Rights: United Kingdom (England and Wales) |url=https://www.loc.gov/law/help/child-rights/uk.php |website=The Library of Congress |publisher=The Law Library of Congress |access-date=12 August 2019}}</ref>

=== Cambodia ===
{{Main|Child labour in Cambodia}}
[[File:Tonle Sap Siem Reap Cambodia Girl-begging-for-money-with-snake-01.jpg|thumb|A little girl making money for her family by posing with a snake in a water village of Tonle Sap Lake]]
Significant levels of child labour appear to be found in Cambodia.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |author=World Bank|date=March 2000|chapter=World Development Indicators 2000 |title=Open Kowledge Repository |doi=10.1596/0-8213-4553-2 |hdl=10986/13828 |isbn=978-0-8213-4553-5 |chapter-url=https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/13828}}</ref> In 1998, ILO estimated that 24.1% of children in Cambodia aged between 10 and 14 were economically active.<ref name=":12" /> Many of these children work long hours and Cambodia Human Development Report 2000 reported that approximately 65,000 children between the ages of 5 and 13 worked 25 hours a week and did not attend school.<ref>{{cite report |publisher=United Nations |url=http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/cambodia-human-development-report-2000|title=Cambodia Human Development Report 2000 |website=Human Development Reports |date=January 2000|access-date=2018-04-05}}</ref> There are also many initiative and policies put in place to decrease the prevalence of child labour such as the United States generalised system of preferences, the U.S.-Cambodia textile agreement, ILO Garment Sector Working Conditions Improvement Project, and ChildWise Tourism.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wells|first=Don|date=2007-06-27|title='Best Practice' in the Regulation of International Labor Standards: Lessons of the U.S.-Cambodia Textile Agreement |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228176587|journal=Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal|volume=27}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tepelus|first=Camelia M.|date=2008|title=Social responsibility and innovation on trafficking and child sex tourism: Morphing of practice into sustainable tourism policies?|jstor=23745520|journal=Tourism and Hospitality Research|volume=8|issue=2 |pages=98–115|doi=10.1057/thr.2008.10|s2cid=153642347}}</ref>

=== Ecuador ===
[[File:Child Labor in Morona Santiago, Ecuador 1990.jpg|thumb|Child labour in a quarry, [[Ecuador]]]]
An Ecuadorean study published in 2006 found child labour to be one of the main environmental problems affecting children's health. It reported that over 800,000 children are working in Ecuador, where they are exposed to heavy metals and toxic chemicals and are subject to mental and physical stress and the insecurity caused by being at risk of work-related accidents. Minors performing agricultural work along with their parents help apply pesticides without wearing protective equipment.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harari |first1=R. |last2=Harari |first2=H. |title=Children's Environment and Health in Latin America: The Ecuadorian Case |journal=Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences |date=1 September 2006 |volume=1076 |issue=1 |pages=660–677 |doi=10.1196/annals.1371.082 |pmid=17119244 |bibcode=2006NYASA1076..660H |s2cid=39554024 }}</ref>

=== India ===
{{main|Child labour in India}}
[[File:A girl drawing water from an irrigation well in India.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Working girl in India]]

In 2015, the country of India is home to the largest number of children who are working illegally in various industrial industries. Agriculture in India is the largest sector where many children work at early ages to help support their family.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=428}} Many of these children are forced to work at young ages due to many family factors such as unemployment, large families, poverty, and lack of parental education. This is often the major cause of the high rate of child labour in India.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=424}}

On 23 June 1757, the English East India Company defeated [[Siraj-ud-Daula]], the [[Nawab]] of Bengal, in the [[Battle of Plassey]]. The British thus became masters of east India (Bengal, Bihar, Orissa) – a prosperous region with a flourishing agriculture, industry and trade.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=421}} This led to many children being forced into labour due to the increasing need of cheap labour to produce large numbers of goods. Many multinationals often employed children because that they can be recruited for less pay, and have more endurance to utilise in factory environments.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=425}} Another reason many Indian children were hired was because they lack knowledge of their basic rights, they did not cause trouble or complain, and they were often more trustworthy. The innocence that comes with childhood was utilised to make a profit by many and was encouraged by the need for family income.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=425}}
[[File:Bangalore India Construction Child Labor Prohibited IMG 5245.jpg|thumb|A sign at a construction site in [[Bangalore]]:<br/>"Child labour prohibited"|300px]]
A variety of Indian social scientists as well as the [[non-governmental organisation]]s (NGOs) have done extensive research on the numeric figures of child labour found in India and determined that India contributes to one-third of Asia's child labour and one-fourth of the world's child labour.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=421}} Due to many children being illegally employed, the Indian government began to take extensive actions to reduce the number of children working, and to focus on the importance of facilitating the proper growth and development of children.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=421}} International influences help to encourage legal actions to be taken in India, such as the Geneva Declaration of the Right of Children Act was passed in 1924. This act was followed by [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights|The Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] in 1948 to which incorporated the basic human rights and needs of children for proper progression and growth in their younger years.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=426}} These international acts encouraged major changes to the workforce in India which occurred in 1986 when the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act was put into place. This act prohibited hiring children younger than the age of 14, and from working in hazardous conditions.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=421}}

Due to the increase of regulations and legal restrictions on child labour, there has been a 64 per cent decline in child labour from 1993 to 2005.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=422}} Although this is a great decrease in the country of India, there is still high numbers of children working in the rural areas of India. With 85 per cent of the child labour occurring in [[rural area]]s, and 15 per cent occurring in [[urban area]]s, there are still substantial areas of concern in the country of India.{{sfn|Lieten|Meerkerk|2011|p=422}}

India has legislation since 1986 which allows work by children in non-hazardous industry. In 2013, the Punjab and Haryana High Court gave a landmark order that directed that there shall be a total ban on the employment of children up to the age of 14 years, be it hazardous or non-hazardous industries. However, the Court ruled that a child can work with his or her family in family based trades/occupations, for the purpose of learning a new trade/craftsmanship or vocation.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

=== Iran ===
{{Main|Child labour in Iran}}
The phenomenon of children labour is one of the social issues of Iranian society, which has taken on serious and diverse dimensions over time. Researches and official and unofficial data show that this social damage is more common in big cities. Also, research data shows that most of the working children in Tehran province are related to [[Afghans in Iran|Afghan children]] who have immigrated to Iran legally or illegally.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Afghan Child Workers in Iran: Registered but still Trafficked |url=https://iranwire.com/en/features/67424/ |work=Iran Wire |date=8 August 2020 |first=Bagher |last=Ebrahimi}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2015-06-01 |title=A report card: Iran and its Afghan children |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/gallery/2015/jun/01/a-report-card-iran-and-its-afghan-children |access-date=2023-12-07 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Iran needs more help to support Afghan refugees – UNHCR chief |url=https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/iran-needs-more-help-support-afghan-refugees-unhcr-chief |website=UNHCR |first=Gisella |last=Lomax |date=4 September 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=To be an Afghan child worker in Iran |url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/to-be-an-afghan-child-worker-in-iran/ |website=Open Democracy |date=11 October 2021 |first1=Sahar |last1=Mousavi |first2=Ghazaal |last2=Bozorgmehr}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Children of Afghan migrants in Iran |url=https://conference.iza.org/conference_files/AMM_2015/naghsh%20nejad_m9218.pdf |first=Maryam |last=Naghsh Nejad}}</ref>

[[Kameel Ahmady]], a [[social research]]er and winner of the Literature and Humanities award from the [[World Peace Foundation]], while emphasizing the fact that most of the children labour in [[Tehran province]] are Afghan children, along with his colleagues believes that with the continuation of Iran's economic crisis, the lack of proper mechanisms to manage and control the phenomenon and absence of legal working visa scheme for Afghan immigrants have caused this social harm to spread.<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://japer.in/article/traces-of-childhood-exploitation-a-comprehensive-study-on-the-forms-of-child-labour-in-iran-ck8uxwz4tfv8wjj |title=Traces of Childhood Exploitation: A Comprehensive Study on the Forms, Causes and Consequences of Child Labour in Iran, Paper presented at the 2th International Conferences on Economics and Social Sciences Hosted by The Polytechnic of Guarda PORTUGAL, pp. 145–167, August 27 – 28, 2022.|journal=Journal of Advanced Pharmacy Education and Research |date=20 February 2024 |volume=13 |issue=4–2023 |pages=57–64 |doi=10.51847/blnsUHGGhq |last1=Ahmady |first1=Kameel |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |author-link=Kameel Ahmady |title=Gender differences in child labour: A systematic review of causes, forms, features and consequences, Paper presented at the 8th International Conferences on Economics and Social Sciences hosted by Cyprus Science University, Antalya, TURKEY, pp. 315–348, October 2022. |url=https://kameelahmady.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Gender-differences.pdf |journal=The 8th International Conferences on Economics and Social Sciences}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.ej-social.org/index.php/ejsocial/article/view/464 |last=Ahmady |first=Kameel |title=Exploitation and Exclusion: A Socio-Cultural Analysis of Child Labour in Iran, 2022, 13th Eurasian Conferences on Language and Social Sciences pp. 561– 583|journal=European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences |date=14 July 2023 |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=13–25 |doi=10.24018/ejsocial.2023.3.4.464 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |author-link=Kameel Ahmady |title=Violation: Child Labour Rights in Iran – Analysis and Solutions, 7th International Conference on Economics and Social Sciences, Cyprus Science University, 2022, pp. 91–115 |url=https://kameelahmady.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/7th-International-Conference-on-Economics-and-Social-Sciences-Cyprus-Science-University-of-Cypurs-.pdf |journal=7th International Conference on Economics and Social Sciences}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ahmady |first=Kameel |date=2021 |title=Traces of Exploitation in Childhood A Comprehensive Research on Forms, Causes and Consequences of Child Labour in Iran |publisher=Avaye Buf, Denmark}}</ref>

[[Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli]], the Minister of Interior at the time in August 2019, while analysing and describing the situation of working children in Tehran, said: "Reports show that street children live in poor conditions and are exploited." One thing that should be noted is that up to 80% of these children are non-Iranian. Considering that some of these children were Afghan nationals, we have raised the issue with the embassy of this country. If other institutions cooperate, we can take appropriate measures to organise street children, but if they do not cooperate. It has also been decided to issue arrest warrants for gangs exploiting children with the cooperation of the police force and the judicial system.<ref>{{Cite web |trans-title=Iran's Interior Minister: 80% of street children in Tehran are foreigners |date=28 July 2019 |url=https://parsi.euronews.com/2019/07/28/eighty-percent-of-the-child-labour-in-tehran-are-foreigners |language=fa |title=وزیر کشور ایران: ۸۰ درصد کودکان خیابانی در تهران خارجی هستند |website=EuroNews}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |trans-title=Rahmani Fazli: 80% of street children in Tehran are foreigners |url=https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1398/05/06/2063570/%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D9%81%D8%B6%D9%84%DB%8C-80-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AE%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AC%DB%8C-%D9%87%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%AF |language=fa |title=رحمانی فضلی: ۸۰ درصد کودکان خیابانی در تهران از اتباع خارجی هستند |website=Tasnim News }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |trans-title=Rahmani Fazli's solution about street children |date=24 October 2017 |url=https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/790255/%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%87-%D8%AD%D9%84-%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D9%81%D8%B6%D9%84%DB%8C-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%87-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AE%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C |script-title=fa:راه حل رحمانی فضلی درباره کودکان خیابانی |website=Mashregh News |language=fa}}</ref>

In [[Isfahan province]], the Iranian Department of State Welfare (''behzisti'') keeps a database of the scanned retina irises of a number of working street kids, and have put "child friendly" measures in place to support them, reduce the social harm from their presence, and improve their quality of life.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-06-12 |script-title=fa:پذیرش ۳۱۹ کودک کار در اصفهان/تهیه بانک اطلاعاتی کودکان کار با دستگاه اسکن عنبیه - ایمنا |url=https://www.imna.ir/news/581184/%D9%BE%D8%B0%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%B4-%DB%B3%DB%B1%DB%B9-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%81%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AA%D9%87%DB%8C%D9%87-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86%DA%A9-%D8%A7%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%86-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D8%A7 |access-date=2022-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220612164814/https://www.imna.ir/news/581184/%D9%BE%D8%B0%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%B4-%DB%B3%DB%B1%DB%B9-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%81%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AA%D9%87%DB%8C%D9%87-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86%DA%A9-%D8%A7%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%86-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D8%A7 |archive-date=12 June 2022 |language=fa |website=IMNA |trans-title=Admission of 319 working children in Isfahan: preparation of database of working children with iris scanning device}}</ref>

Only Tehran as of June 2023 has seventy thousand working children they also collect recycles.<ref>{{Cite web |title=۷۰هزار کودک کار و خیابان در تهران|url=https://www.irna.ir/news/85136661/%DB%B7%DB%B0-%D9%87%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%B1-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%88-%D8%AE%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86 |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=www.irna.ir |date=11 June 2023 |language=fa |trans-title=70 thousand working and street children in Tehran}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-09-11 |title=ایران بیش از 70 هزار کودک کار دارد |url=https://farsi.alarabiya.net/2020/09/11/%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A8%DB%8C%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D8%B2-70-%D9%87%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%B1-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF |access-date=2023-06-11 |website=farsi.alarabiya.net |language=fa |trans-title=Iran has more than 70 thousand working children}}</ref>

As of July 2023 %15 of children are child labour, 8% do not have a residence. 10 per cent of children are not in school.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1402/05/08/2933327/%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9-%DA%AF%D8%B1%DB%8C%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86-%DA%AF%DB%8C%D8%B1-%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%AF-15%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%AF%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%86-%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA |website=Tasnim News |title="کار کودک" گریبان‌گیر حدود ۱۵درصد از کودکان کشور است! |trans-title="Child labor" is a problem for about 15% of children in the country! |language=fa}}</ref>

===Ireland===
In post-colonial Ireland, the rate of child exploitation was extremely high as children were used as farm labourers once they were able to walk, these children were never paid for the labour that they carried out on the family farm. Children were wanted and desired in Ireland for the use of their labour on the family farm. Irish parents felt that it was the children's duty to carry out chores on the family farm.<ref>Curtin, Chris and Anthony Varley. 1984. ''Children and childhood in rural Ireland: a consideration of the ethnographic literature''. Culture and ideology in Ireland.</ref>

===Japan===
Though banned in modern Japan, ''shonenko'' (child labourers) were a feature of the Imperial era until its end in 1945. During [[World War II]] labour recruiting efforts targeted youths from [[Taiwan|Taiwan (Formosa)]], then a Japanese territory, with promises of educational opportunity. Though the target of 25,000 recruits was never reached, over 8,400 Taiwanese youths aged 12 to 14 relocated to Japan to help manufacture the [[Mitsubishi J2M|Mitsubishi J2M Raiden]] aircraft.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://therunagatesclub.blogspot.tw/2008/06/shonenko-taiwanese-boys-who-built.html|title=SHONENKO - the Taiwanese boys who built Mitsubishi aircraft as Japan's defences crumbled|website=therunagatesclub.blogspot.tw|date=18 June 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://ipixels.net/twff/shonenko-En.html|title=Shoneko (2006)|website=ipixels.net}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.quietsummer.com/Emeraldhorizon/SBackgroundE.html|title=SHONENKO - BACKGROUND|website=www.quietsummer.com}}</ref>

===Pakistan===
{{Main|Child labour in Pakistan}}

===The Netherlands===
{{Main|Child labour in the Netherlands}}
[[Child labour in the Netherlands|Child labour]] existed in the Netherlands up to and through the Industrial Revolution. Laws governing child labour in factories were first passed in 1874, but child labour on farms continued to be the norm up until the 20th century.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.netherlands-tourism.com/history-of-the-netherlands/|title=History of the Netherlands|last=M|first=Jan|website=Netherlands Tourism|date=23 October 2014|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-30}}</ref>

=== Soviet Union and successor states ===
Although formally banned since 1922, child labour was widespread in the [[Soviet Union]], mostly in the form of mandatory, [[unpaid work]] by schoolchildren on Saturdays and holidays. The students were used as a cheap, unqualified workforce on [[kolhoz|''kolhoz'' (collective farms)]] as well as in industry and forestry. The practice was formally called "work education".<ref>{{cite web |first=Svetlana |last=Stephenson |url=http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=child |title=Child Labour in the Russian Federation |date= June 2002 |publisher=International Labour Office |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20060922003039/http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=child |archive-date=22 September 2006}}</ref>

From the 1950s on, the students were also used for unpaid work at schools, where they cleaned and performed repairs.<ref>{{cite web |author=Евгений Жирнов |url=http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/798328 |script-title=ru:Среднее и высшее самообслуживание |date=27 August 2007 |website=Kommersant |language=ru}}</ref> This practice has continued in the Russian Federation, where up to 21 days of the summer holidays is sometimes set aside for school works. By law, this is only allowed as part of specialised occupational training and with the students' and parents' permission, but those provisions are widely ignored.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://otvet.mail.ru/question/77019732|script-title=ru:Школьников заставляют работать в школьном участке в каникулах. 21 дней. Не платят. Нарушаются ли права?|website=otvet.mail.ru|date=26 June 2012 |language=ru}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=December 2022}} In 2012 there was an accident near the city of [[Nalchik]] where a car killed several pupils cleaning up a highway shoulder during their "holiday work", as well as their teacher, who was supervising them.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lifenews.ru/news/89188 |script-title=ru:Водитель сбил 4 школьников в Кабардино-Балкарии |publisher=[[LifeNews]]|year=2012 |author=Ирина Десятниченко |language=ru |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20120421032146/http://lifenews.ru/news/89188 |archive-date=21 April 2012}}</ref>

Out of former [[Soviet Union]] republics [[Uzbekistan]] continued and expanded the program of child labour on industrial scale to increase profits on the main source of [[Islam Karimov]]'s income, cotton harvesting. In September, when school normally starts, the classes are suspended and children are sent to cotton fields for work, where they are assigned daily quotas of 20 to 60&nbsp;kg of raw cotton they have to collect. This process is repeated in spring, when collected cotton needs to be hoed and weeded. In 2006 it is estimated that 2.7 million children were forced to work this way.<ref>{{cite book|title=Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty |author=[[Daron Acemoglu]], James Robinson |pages=loc. 6515–6529 (MOBI)}}</ref>

=== Switzerland ===
{{Main|Child labour in Switzerland}}

As in many other countries, [[child labour in Switzerland]] affected among the so-called ''[[Kaminfegerkinder]]'' ("chimney sweep children") and children working p.e. in spinning mills, factories and in agriculture in 19th-century Switzerland,<ref name="hds-kinderarbeit">{{cite web|url=http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/d/D13909.php|title=Kinderabeit|publisher=HDS|last=Gull|first=Thomas|language=de|date=2008-10-13|access-date=2014-11-15}}</ref> but also to the 1960s so-called ''[[Verdingkinder]]'' (literally: "contract children" or "indentured child laborers") were children who were taken from their parents, often due to poverty or ''moral reasons'' – usually mothers being unmarried, very poor citizens, of [[Names of the Romani people|Gypsy]]–[[Yeniche people|Yeniche]] origin, so-called ''[[Kinder der Landstrasse]]'',<ref name="roger_sablonier_unizh-publikationen">{{cite web|url=http://www.hist.uzh.ch/fachbereiche/mittelalter/emeriti/sablonier/publikationen.html|title=Prof. Dr. Roger Sablonier, Publikationen|publisher=[[University of Zürich]], Historisches Seminar|language=de|access-date=2014-11-15}}</ref> etc. – and sent to live with new families, often poor farmers who needed cheap labour.<ref name="wiedergutmachungsinitiative">{{cite web|url=http://www.wiedergutmachung.ch/|title=Wiedergutmachungsinitiative|publisher=wiedergutmachung.ch|language=de|date=2014|access-date=2014-11-15|archive-date=11 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211171754/https://www.wiedergutmachung.ch/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

There were even ''Verdingkinder'' auctions where children were handed over to the farmer asking the least money from the authorities, thus securing cheap labour for his farm and relieving the authority from the financial burden of looking after the children. In the 1930s 20% of all agricultural labourers in the [[Canton of Bern]] were children below the age of 15. Swiss municipality guardianship authorities acted so, commonly tolerated by federal authorities, to the 1960s, not all of them of course, but usually communities affected of low taxes in some Swiss cantons<ref name="BBC" /> Swiss historian Marco Leuenberger investigated, that in 1930 there were some 35,000 indentured children, and between 1920 and 1970 more than 100,000 are believed to have been placed with families or homes. 10,000 ''Verdingkinder'' are still alive.<ref name="BBC">{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29765623|title=Switzerland's shame: The children used as cheap farm labour|work=BBC News|last=Puri|first=Kavita|date=2014-10-29|access-date=2014-11-15}}</ref><ref name="NYT">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/opinion/slaverys-shadow-on-switzerland.html?_r=0|title=Slavery's Shadow on Switzerland|newspaper=The New York Times|last=Wild|first=Tony|date=2014-11-10|access-date=2014-11-15}}</ref> Therefore, the so-called ''[[Wiedergutmachungsinitiative]]'' was started in April 2014. In April 2014 the collection of targeted at least authenticated 100,000 signatures of Swiss citizens has started, and still have to be collected to October 2015.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

=== United States ===
{{Main|Child labor in the United States}}

[[File:Missouri_Governor_Joseph_Folk_inspecting_child_laborers,_1906,_drawn_by_Marguerite_Martyn.jpg|thumb|right|[[Missouri]] Governor [[Joseph W. Folk]] inspecting child labourers in 1906 in an image drawn by journalist [[Marguerite Martyn]]]]
Child labour laws in the United States are found at the federal and state levels. The most sweeping federal law that restricts the employment and abuse of child workers is the [[Fair Labor Standards Act]] (FLSA). Child labour provisions under FLSA are designed to protect the educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment in jobs that are detrimental to their health and safety. FLSA restricts the hours that youth under 16 years of age can work and lists hazardous occupations too dangerous for young workers to perform.

Under the FLSA, for non-agricultural jobs, children under 14 may not be employed, children between 14 and 16 may be employed in allowed occupations during limited hours, and children between 16 and 17 may be employed for unlimited hours in non-hazardous occupations.<ref name="childlabor101">{{cite web |title=Child Labor Provision for Nonagricultural Occupations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act|url=http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/childlabor101.pdf|publisher=U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division|access-date=17 April 2012|date=July 2010}}</ref> A number of exceptions to these rules exist, such as for employment by parents, newspaper delivery, and child actors.<ref name="childlabor101"/> The regulations for agricultural employment are generally less strict.

States have varying laws covering youth employment. Each state has minimum requirements such as, earliest age a child may begin working, number of hours a child is allowed to be working during the day, number of hours a child is allowed to be worked during the week. The [[United States Department of Labor]] lists the minimum requirements for agricultural work in each state.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/agriemp2.htm|title = State child labor laws applicable to agricultural employment|date = December 2014|access-date = September 11, 2015|website = Wage and hour division|publisher = United States Department of Labor}}</ref> Where state law differs from federal law on child labour, the law with the more rigorous standard applies.<ref name="childlabor101"/>

Individual states have a wide range of restrictions on labour by minors, often requiring work permits for minors who are still enrolled in high school, limiting the times and hours that minors can work by age and imposing additional safety regulations.

==Laws and initiatives==
{{Main|Child labour law}}
{{See also|Legal working age}}

Almost every country in the world has laws relating to and aimed at preventing child labour. International Labour Organization has helped set international law, which most countries have signed on and ratified. According to ILO [[Minimum Age Convention, 1973|minimum age convention (C138)]] of 1973, child labour refers to any work performed by children under the age of 12, non-light work done by children aged 12–14, and hazardous work done by children aged 15–17. Light work was defined, under this convention, as any work that does not harm a child's health and development, and that does not interfere with his or her attendance at school. This convention has been ratified by 171 countries.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:11300:0::NO:11300:P11300_INSTRUMENT_ID:312283|website=International Labour Organisation|access-date=3 April 2024 |title=Ratifications of C138 - Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138)}}</ref>

The United Nations adopted the [[Convention on the Rights of the Child]] in 1990, which was subsequently ratified by 193 countries.<ref name=untreaty>{{cite web |website=United Nations Treaty Collection |url=http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4&lang=en |title=Convention on the Rights of the Child |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140211151110/http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4&lang=en |archive-date=11 February 2014 |access-date=21 May 2009}}</ref> Article 32 of the convention addressed child labour, as follows:<blockquote>...Parties recognise the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.<ref name="UN">{{cite web|title=Convention on the Rights of the Child |work=United Nations |url=http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm |access-date=2006-10-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061003230539/http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm |archive-date=3 October 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref></blockquote>

Under Article 1 of the 1990 Convention, a child is defined as "every human being below the age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the child, a majority is attained earlier." Article 28 of this Convention requires States to, "make primary education compulsory and available free to all."<ref name="UN"/>

As of 2024, 196 countries are party to the convention; the only nation that has not ratified the treaty is the [[US ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child|United States]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4&clang=_en |title=11. Convention on the Rights of the Child |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=United Nations Treaty Collection}}</ref>

In 1999, ILO helped lead the [[Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention|Worst Forms Convention 182]] (C182),<ref>{{cite web|title=C182 - Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999|publisher=International Labour Organization, United Nations|year=1999|url=http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312327}}</ref> which has so far been signed upon and domestically ratified by 151 countries including the United States. This international law prohibits worst forms of child labour, defined as all forms of slavery and slavery-like practices, such as child trafficking, debt bondage, and forced labour, including forced recruitment of children into armed conflict. The law also prohibits the use of a child for prostitution or the production of pornography, child labour in illicit activities such as drug production and trafficking; and in hazardous work. Both the Worst Forms Convention (C182) and the Minimum Age Convention (C138) are examples of [[international labour standards]] implemented through the ILO that deal with child labour.

In addition to setting the international law, the United Nations initiated International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in 1992.<ref>{{cite web|title=International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)|publisher=International Labour Organization, United Nations|year=2011|url=http://www.ilo.org/ipec/lang--en/index.htm}}</ref> This initiative aims to progressively eliminate child labour through strengthening national capacities to address some of the causes of child labour. Amongst the key initiative is the so-called time-bounded programme countries, where child labour is most prevalent and schooling opportunities lacking. The initiative seeks to achieve amongst other things, universal primary school availability. The IPEC has expanded to at least the following target countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, [[Child labour in Nepal|Nepal]], Tanzania, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa and Turkey.

Targeted child labour campaigns were initiated by the [[International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour]] (IPEC) in order to advocate for prevention and elimination of all forms of child labour. The global Music against Child Labour Initiative was launched in 2013 in order to involve socially excluded children in structured musical activity and education in efforts to help protect them from child labour.<ref>{{cite web|title=Music Against Child Labour Initiative|publisher= IPEC, International Labour Organization, United Nations|year=2013|url=http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/MusicInitiative/lang--en/index.htm}}</ref>

===Exceptions granted===
[[File:Amish - On the way to school by Gadjoboy-crop.jpg|thumb|upright|right|The United States has passed a law that allows Amish children older than 14 to work in traditional wood enterprises with proper supervision.]]

In 2004, the United States passed an amendment to the [[Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938]]. The amendment allows certain children aged 14–18 to work in or outside a business where machinery is used to process wood.<ref>{{cite web|title=Exemptions from Child Labour Rules in Non-Agriculture (see FLSA Section 13(<span class="ltr">c</span>)(<span class="ltr">7</span>))|publisher=Department of Labour, United States|year=2012 |url=http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/cl/exemptions.asp|access-date=17 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120703183202/http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/cl/exemptions.asp|archive-date=3 July 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> The law aims to respect the religious and cultural needs of the [[Amish]] community of the United States. The Amish believe that one effective way to educate children is on the job.<ref name="Labour laws - An Amish exception"/> The new law allows Amish children the ability to work with their families, once they are past eighth grade in school.

Similarly, in 1996, member countries of the European Union, per Directive 94/33/EC,<ref name="EUR-Lex"/> agreed to a number of exceptions for young people in its child labour laws. Under these rules, children of various ages may work in cultural, artistic, sporting or advertising activities if authorised by the competent authority. Children above the age of 13 <!--  -->may perform light work for a limited number of hours per week in other economic activities as defined at the discretion of each country. Additionally, the European law exception allows children aged 14 years or over to work as part of a work/training scheme. The EU Directive clarified that these exceptions do not allow child labour where the children may experience harmful exposure to dangerous substances.<ref>{{cite web|title=Protections of young people at work|publisher=Europa|year=2004 |url=http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/employment_and_social_policy/health_hygiene_safety_at_work/c11205_en.htm}}</ref> Nonetheless, many children under the age of 13 do work, even in the most developed countries of the EU. For instance, a recent study showed over a third of Dutch twelve-year-old kids had a job, the most common being babysitting.<ref>{{cite web |language=nl |url=http://www.rtl.nl/%28/actueel/editienl/cookieless/%29/components/actueel/editienl/nieuws/2012/w07/12-jarige-werken.xml |title=Eenderde van de 12-jarigen heeft bijbaan |website=RTL News |date=14 February 2012 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20160206191734/http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/eenderde-van-de-12-jarigen-heeft-bijbaan |archive-date=6 February 2016}}</ref>

===More laws vs. more freedom===
{{Rquote|right|Very often, however, these state laws were not enforced... Federal legislation was passed in 1916 and again in 1919, but both laws were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Although the number of child workers declined dramatically during the 1920s and 1930s, it was not until the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 that federal regulation of child labor finally became a reality.|Smithsonian, on child labour in early 20th century United States<ref name=smithson>{{cite web|title=In the playtime of others - child labor in the early 20th century|publisher=Smithsonian Education|date=December 1988|url=http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/child_labor/ATZ_ChildLabor_December1988.pdf}}</ref>}}
Scholars disagree on the best legal course forward to address child labour. Some suggest the need for laws that place a blanket ban on any work by children less than 18 years old. Others suggest the current international laws are enough, and the need for more engaging approach to achieve the ultimate goals.<ref name=sosecon>{{cite news|title=Sickness or symptom? |newspaper=The Economist|date=5 February 2004|url=http://www.economist.com/node/2405051 |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref>

Some scholars{{who|date=January 2016}} suggest any labour by children aged 18 years or less is wrong since this encourages illiteracy, inhumane work and lower investment in human capital. These activists claim that child labour also leads to poor labour standards for adults, depresses the wages of adults in developing countries as well as the developed countries, and dooms the third world economies to low-skill jobs only capable of producing poor quality cheap exports. More children that work in poor countries, the fewer and worse-paid are the jobs for adults in these countries. In other words, there are moral and economic reasons that justify a blanket ban on labour from children aged 18 years or less, everywhere in the world.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Is Child Labour Inefficient?|author=Jean-Marie Baland and James A. Robinson|s2cid=38990374|journal=Journal of Political Economy|volume= 108|number= 4|date= August 2000|pages=663–679|jstor=10.1086/316097|doi=10.1086/316097}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=CHILD WAGES IN THE COTTON MILLS: OUR MODERN FEUDALISM (Originally published: Child labour bulletin, volume 2, number 1 (May 1913))|author=A. J. McKELWAY|year=1913|url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/mckelway/mckelway.html}}</ref>

[[File:Child labor Bangladesh.jpg|thumb|[[Child labour in Bangladesh]]]]

Other scholars{{who|date=January 2016}} suggest that these arguments are flawed and ignore history, and that more laws will do more harm than good. According to them, child labour is merely the symptom of poverty. If laws ban all lawful work that enables the poor to survive, informal economy, illicit operations and underground businesses will thrive. These will increase abuse of the children. In poor countries with very high incidence rates of child labour&nbsp;– such as Ethiopia, Chad, Niger and Nepal&nbsp;– schools are not available, and the few schools that exist offer poor quality education or are unaffordable. The alternatives for children who currently work, claim these studies, are worse: grinding subsistence farming, militia or prostitution. Child labour is not a choice, it is a necessity, the only option for survival. It is currently the least undesirable of a set of very bad choices.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Policy Analysis of Child Labour: A Comparative Study|author1=Christiaan Grootaert |author2=Harry Anthony Patrinos |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=1999|pages=8–54|isbn=978-0312221225}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Economics of Consumer Actions against Products with Child Labour Content|last=Edmonds|first=Eric|date=May 2007|url=http://www.dartmouth.edu/~eedmonds/clwa.pdf|access-date=17 July 2012|archive-date=9 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809040517/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~eedmonds/clwa.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Traidcraft Exchange and Homeworkers Worldwide argue that attempts to eliminate child labour without addressing the level of adult earnings may lead to children being engaged in labour in "less visible and more hazardous occupations".<ref>{{cite web |publisher=Traidcraft Exchange and Homeworkers Worldwide |url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60a24248d1bdf007a7d6d14f/t/60a7ee9020a5810a3649d66a/1621618333902/Child+Labour+Toolkit.pdf |title=Preventing Child Labour in Home-based Crafts Production - A Practical Toolkit for Businesses |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref>

[[File:Child labour Nepal.jpg|thumb|[[Nepal]]i girls working in brick factory]]
These scholars suggest, from their studies of economic and social data, that early 20th-century child labour in Europe and the United States ended in large part as a result of the economic development of the formal regulated economy, technology development and general prosperity. Child labour laws and ILO conventions came later. Edmonds suggests, even in contemporary times, the incidence of child labour in Vietnam has rapidly reduced following economic reforms and GDP growth. These scholars suggest economic engagement, emphasis on opening quality schools rather than more laws and expanding economically relevant skill development opportunities in the third world. International legal actions, such as trade sanctions increase child labour.<ref name=sosecon/><ref>{{cite journal|title=Does Child Labour Decline with Improving Economic Status?|last=Edmonds|first=Eric|journal=Journal of Human Resources| volume=40|number= 1|date=Winter 2005|pages=77–99|doi=10.3368/jhr.XL.1.77|s2cid=13971652|url=http://www.nber.org/papers/w10134.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=The economics of child labour: A framework for measurement|last=Anker|first=Richard|journal=International Labour Review|volume=139|issue=3|pages=257–280|date=September 2000|doi=10.1111/j.1564-913X.2000.tb00204.x}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Will trade sanctions reduce child labour?: The role of credit markets|author1=Saqib Jafareya |author2=Sajal Lahiri |journal=Journal of Development Economics|volume=68|issue=1|date=June 2002|pages=137–156|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(<span class="ltr">02</span>)00009-3}}</ref>

''[[The Incredible Bread Machine]]'', a book published by "World Research, Inc." in 1974, stated:

{{blockquote|Child labour was a particular target of early reformers. William Cooke Tatlor wrote at the time about these reformers who, witnessing children at work in the factories, thought to themselves: 'How much more delightful would have been the gambol of the free limbs on the hillside; the sight of the green mead with its spangles of buttercups and daisies; the song of the bird and the humming bee...'
But for many of these children the factory system meant quite literally the only chance for survival. Today we overlook the fact that death from starvation and exposure was a common fate before the Industrial Revolution, for the pre-capitalist economy was barely able to support the population. Yes, children were working. Formerly they would have starved. It was only as goods were produced in greater abundance at a lower cost that men could support their families without sending their children to work. It was not the reformer or the politician that ended the grim necessity for child labour; it was capitalism.}}

==Incidents==
{{Slavery|Contemporary}}

===Cocoa production===
{{main|Children in cocoa production|Harkin–Engel Protocol}}
In 1998, [[UNICEF]] reported that [[Ivory Coast]] farmers used enslaved children – many from surrounding countries.<ref name="Raghavan1">{{cite news |author1=Sudarsan Raghavan |author2=Sumana Chatterjee |title=Slaves feed world's taste for chocolate: Captives common in cocoa farms of Africa |newspaper=[[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]] |date=24 June 2001 |url=http://www2.jsonline.com/news/nat/jun01/slave24r062301.asp |access-date=25 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060917014323/http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/atasteofslavery.html| archive-date=17 September 2006}}</ref> In late 2000 a BBC documentary reported the use of enslaved children in the production of [[Theobroma cacao|cocoa]] – the main ingredient in [[chocolate]]<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/04/12/3475859.htm |title=Cocoa shortage to push up chocolate price |last=Bentley |first=Prue |publisher=ABC Ballarat |date=12 April 2012 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20120822151126/https://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/04/12/3475859.htm |archive-date=22 August 2012}}</ref> – in [[West Africa]].<ref name="combating">{{cite web |title=Combating Child Labour in Cocoa Growing |publisher=[[International Labour Organization]] |year=2005 |url=http://www.ilo.org/public//english//standards/ipec/themes/cocoa/download/2005_02_cl_cocoa.pdf |access-date= 26 April 2012 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20050525122715/http://www.ilo.org/public//english//standards/ipec/themes/cocoa/download/2005_02_cl_cocoa.pdf |archive-date=25 May 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i2WeACR-WIYC&q=bbc+documentary+children+chocolate+2000&pg=PA98 |page= 98 |title= Naked Chocolate: The Astonishing Truth about the World's Greatest Food |author1= David Wolfe |author2= Shazzie |publisher= North Atlantic Books |year= 2005 |isbn=978-1556437311 |access-date=15 December 2011}}</ref> Other media followed by reporting widespread [[child slavery]] and [[Trafficking of children|child trafficking]] in the production of cocoa.<ref name="Raghavan1" /><ref name="chocolate slavery">{{cite news |last=Hawksley |first=Humphrey |author-link=Humphrey Hawksley |title=Mali's children in chocolate slavery |work=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1272522.stm |date=12 April 2001}}</ref><ref name="accuses companies">{{cite news |last=Hawksley |first=Humphrey |title=Ivory Coast accuses chocolate companies |work=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1311982.stm |date=4 May 2001}}</ref> In 2001, the [[US State Department]] estimated there were 15,000 child slaves cocoa, cotton and coffee farms in the Ivory Coast,<ref name="commondreams.org">{{cite news|last=Chatterjee |first=Sumana |title=Chocolate Firms Launch Fight Against 'Slave Free' Labels |newspaper=[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]] |date=1 August 2001|url=http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0801-03.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308050847/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0801-03.htm |archive-date=8 March 2012 }}</ref> and the Chocolate Manufacturers Association acknowledged that child [[slave]]ry is used in the cocoa harvest.<ref name="commondreams.org"/>{{failed verification|date=July 2012}}{{better source needed|date=July 2012}}

[[Mali]]an migrants have long worked on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, but in 2000 cocoa prices had dropped to a 10-year low and some farmers stopped paying their employees.<ref name="Blunt"/> The Malian counsel had to rescue some boys who had not been paid for five years and who were beaten if they tried to run away.<ref name="Blunt">{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/946952.stm |title= The bitter taste of slavery |date= 28 September 2000 |last= Blunt |first= Liz |publisher = BBC |access-date = 15 December 2011}}</ref> Malian officials believed that 15,000 children, some as young as 11 years old, were working in the Ivory Coast in 2001. These children were often from poor families or the slums and were sold to work in other countries.<ref name="chocolate slavery"/> Parents were told the children would find work and send money home, but once the children left home, they often worked in conditions resembling slavery.<ref name="combating"/> In other cases, children begging for food were lured from bus stations and sold as slaves.<ref>{{cite web|last=Chanthavong |first=Samlanchith |title=Chocolate and Slavery: Child Labour in Cote d'Ivoire |work=TED Case Studies Number 664 |publisher=[[American University]] |year=2002|url=http://www.american.edu/TED/chocolate-slave.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210170034/http://www1.american.edu/ted/chocolate-slave.htm |archive-date=10 February 2012 }}</ref> In 2002, the Ivory Coast had 12,000 children with no relatives nearby, which suggested they were trafficked,<ref name="combating"/> likely from neighboring Mali, [[Burkina Faso]] and [[Togo]].<ref name="Blue Chevigny">{{cite web |url= http://www.unicef.org/protection/cotedivoire_39995.html |title= Child trafficking in Côte d'Ivoire: Efforts under way to reverse a tragic trend |last= Chevigny |first= Blue |date= 14 June 2007 |access-date= 1 May 2012 |archive-date= 9 May 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120509232506/http://www.unicef.org/protection/cotedivoire_39995.html |url-status= dead }}</ref>

The cocoa industry was accused of profiting from child slavery and trafficking.<ref name="Payson2010 p26">{{cite web|url=https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/research_file_attachment/Final%20Fourth%20Annual%20Report.pdf |title=Fourth Annual Report: Oversight of Public and Private Initiatives to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour in the Cocoa Sector of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana |publisher=Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer, Tulane University |pages=26–27 |date=30 September 2010}}</ref> The European Cocoa Association dismissed these accusations as "false and excessive"<ref name="Payson2010 p26"/> and the industry said the reports were not representative of all areas.<ref name="BBC2000">{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/948876.stm |title= Cocoa farm slavery 'exaggerated' |work= BBC News |date= 29 September 2000}}</ref> Later the industry acknowledged the working conditions for children were unsatisfactory and children's rights were sometimes violated<ref name="Payson2010 p26"/> and acknowledged the claims could not be ignored. In a BBC interview, the ambassador for Ivory Coast to the United Kingdom called these reports of widespread use of slave child labour by 700,000 cocoa farmers as absurd and inaccurate.<ref name="BBC2000"/>

In 2001, a voluntary agreement called the [[Harkin–Engel Protocol]], was accepted by the international cocoa and chocolate industry to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, as defined by [[Convention 182|ILO's Convention 182]], in West Africa.<ref name="HE Protocol">{{cite web|url=http://www.cocoainitiative.org/images/stories/pdf/harkin%20engel%20protocol.pdf |title=Protocol for the growing and processing of cocoa beans and their derivative products in a manner that complies with ILO Convention 182 concerning the prohibition and immediate action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour |publisher=International Cocoa Initiative |year=2001|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724105142/http://www.cocoainitiative.org/images/stories/pdf/harkin%20engel%20protocol.pdf |archive-date=24 July 2008 }}</ref> This agreement created a foundation named International Cocoa Initiative in 2002. The foundation claims it has, as of 2011, active programs in 290 cocoa growing communities in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, reaching a total population of 689,000 people to help eliminate the worst forms of child labour in cocoa industry.<ref>{{cite web|title=Annual Report 2011 |publisher=International Cocoa Initiative |year=2012 |url=http://www.cocoainitiative.org/en/reports/ici-reports-and-newsletters |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120625114606/http://www.cocoainitiative.org/en/reports/ici-reports-and-newsletters |archive-date=25 June 2012 }}</ref> Other organisations claim progress has been made, but the protocol's 2005 deadlines have not yet been met.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/19/the-human-cost-of-chocolate/ |title= The Human Cost of Chocolate |last= Escobedo |first= Tricia |publisher= CNN |date= 19 September 2011 |access-date= 1 May 2012 |archive-date= 22 March 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120322072304/http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/19/the-human-cost-of-chocolate/ |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref name="Monsy">{{cite news|url=http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Displayarticle09.asp?section=diversions&xfile=data/diversions/2012/February/diversions_February12.xml |title=The bitter truth |author=Karen Ann Monsy |newspaper=Khaleej Times |date=24 February 2012|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415005849/http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data%2Fdiversions%2F2012%2FFebruary%2Fdiversions_February12.xml&section=diversions |archive-date=15 April 2012}}</ref><ref name="Payson2011">{{cite web|url=https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/research_file_attachment/Final%20Fourth%20Annual%20Report.pdf |title=Fourth Annual Report: Oversight of Public and Private Initiatives to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour in the Cocoa Sector of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana |publisher=Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer, Tulane University |pages=7–12 |date=30 September 2010}}</ref>

===Mining in Africa===
[[File:Diamond miners-1-.jpg|thumb|left|[[Child labour in the diamond industry|Children engaged in diamond mining]] in [[Sierra Leone]]]]

In 2008, Bloomberg claimed child labour in [[copper]] and [[cobalt]] mines that supplied Chinese companies in Congo. The children are ''creuseurs'', that is they dig the ore by hand, carry sacks of ores on their backs, and these are then purchased by these companies. Over 60 of [[Katanga Province|Katanga's]] 75 processing plants are owned by Chinese companies and 90 per cent of the region's minerals go to China.<ref>{{cite news|title=China Lets Child Workers Die Digging in Congo Mines for Copper|publisher=Bloomberg L.P.|date=22 July 2008|author1=Simon Clark |author2=Michael Smith |author3=Franz Wild |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aW8xVLQ4Xhr8|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150112063831/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aW8xVLQ4Xhr8|url-status=dead|archive-date=12 January 2015}}</ref> An African NGO report claimed 80,000 child labourers under the age of 15, or about 40% of all miners, were supplying ore to Chinese companies in this African region.<ref>{{cite web|title=Strengthening the Civil society Perspective: China's African impact |pages=9–15 |last=Marks |first=Stephen |year=2010 |publisher=Fahamu |url=http://www.fahamu.org/downloads/strengthening_the_civil_society_perspective.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110104005117/http://www.fahamu.org/downloads/strengthening_the_civil_society_perspective.pdf |archive-date=4 January 2011}}</ref>
[[Amnesty International]] alleged in 2016 that some cobalt sold by [[Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt|Congo Dongfang Mining]] was produced by child labour, and that it was being used in [[lithium-ion batteries]] powering electric cars and mobile devices worldwide.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/01/child-labour-behind-smart-phone-and-electric-car-batteries/|title=Exposed: Child labour behind smart phone and electric car batteries|website=www.amnesty.org|date=19 January 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ |title=Cobalt mining for lithium ion batteries has a high human cost |first1=Todd C. |last1=Frankel |date=2016-09-30 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date= 2016-10-18}}</ref>

BBC, in 2012, accused [[Glencore]] of using child labour in its mining and smelting operations of Africa. Glencore denied it used child labour, and said it has strict policy of not using child labour. The company claimed it has a strict policy whereby all copper was mined correctly, placed in bags with numbered seals and then sent to the smelter. Glencore mentioned being aware of child miners who were part of a group of artisanal miners who had without authorisation raided the concession awarded to the company since 2010; Glencore has been pleading with the government to remove the artisanal miners from the concession.<ref>{{cite news|title=Mining giant Glencore accused in child labour and acid dumping row|last=Sweeney|first=John|newspaper=The Guardian|date=14 April 2012|url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/apr/14/glencore-child-labour-acid-dumping-row}}</ref>

Small-scale [[artisanal mining]] of gold is another source of dangerous child labour in poor rural areas in certain parts of the world.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Poisonous Mix - Child Labour, Mercury, and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali|publisher=Human Rights Watch|year=2011|url=https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/mali1211_forinsertWebUpload_0.pdf |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20120417120848/https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/mali1211_forinsertWebUpload_0.pdf |archive-date=17 April 2012 |isbn=978-1-56432-831-1}}</ref> This form of mining uses labour-intensive and low-tech methods. It is informal sector of the economy. [[Human Rights Watch]] group estimates that about 12 per cent of global gold production comes from artisanal mines. In west Africa, in countries such as [[Mali]] – the third largest exporter of gold in Africa – between 20,000 and 40,000 children work in artisanal mining. Locally known as ''orpaillage'', children as young as six years old work with their families. These children and families suffer chronic exposure to toxic chemicals including [[Mercury poisoning|mercury]], and do hazardous work such as digging shafts and working underground, pulling up, carrying and crushing the ore. The poor work practices harm the long-term health of children, as well as release hundreds of tons of mercury every year into local rivers, ground water and lakes. Gold is important to the economy of Mali and Ghana. For Mali, it is the second largest earner of its export revenue. For many poor families with children, it is the primary and sometimes the only source of income.<ref>{{cite web|title=Child labour in gold mining|publisher=ILO, United Nations|year=2012|url=http://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/Miningandquarrying/MoreaboutCLinmining/lang--en/index.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Artisanal Gold Mining: Unglamorous Practices at High Prices |last=Garcia |first=Sandra |publisher=Mining Magazine |date=April 2010 |url=http://magazine.mining.com/issues/1003/Vol03-02-ArtisanalGoldMining-36-38.pdf }}{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

===Meatpacking===
{{see also|Packers Sanitation Services illegal employment of children}}
In early August 2008, [[Iowa]] Labour Commissioner David Neil announced that his department had found that [[Agriprocessors]], a [[kosher]] [[meatpacking]] company in [[Postville, Iowa|Postville]] which had recently been raided by [[Immigration and Customs Enforcement]], had employed 57 minors, some as young as 14, in violation of state law prohibiting anyone under 18 from working in a meatpacking plant. Neil announced that he was turning the case over to the state Attorney General for prosecution, claiming that his department's inquiry had discovered "egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa's child labour laws."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/us/06meat.html?hp |title=Inquiry Finds Under-Age Workers at Meat Plant |work=The New York Times |first=Julia |last=Preston |date=5 August 2008}}</ref> Agriprocessors claimed that it was at a loss to understand the allegations. Agriprocessors' CEO went to trial on these charges in state court on 4 May 2010. After a five-week trial he was found not guilty of all 57 charges of child labour violations by the Black Hawk County District Court jury in Waterloo, Iowa, on 7 June 2010.<ref>{{cite news |first=Julia |last=Preston |date=7 June 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/us/08immig.html?ref=agriprocessors_inc |title=Former Manager of Iowa Slaughterhouse Is Acquitted of Labour Charges |work=The New York Times |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref>

===GAP===
[[File:Ooty 15.jpg|thumb|Working child in [[Ooty]], India]]
A 2007 report claimed some GAP products had been produced by child labourers. GAP acknowledged the problem and announced it is pulling the products from its shelves.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/oct/28/ethicalbusiness.india|title=Child sweatshop shame threatens GAP's ethical image|first=Dan|last=McDougall|newspaper=The Observer |date=28 October 2007|via=The Guardian}}</ref> The report found that GAP had rigorous social audit systems since 2004 to eliminate child labour in its supply chain. However, the report concluded that the system was being abused by unscrupulous subcontractors.

GAP's policy, the report claimed, is that if it discovers child labour was used by its supplier in its branded clothes, the contractor must remove the child from the workplace, provide them with access to schooling and a wage, and guarantee the opportunity of work on reaching a legal working age.

In 2007, The New York Times reported that GAP, after the child labour discovery, created a $200,000 grant to improve working conditions in the supplier community.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/business/worldbusiness/15iht-gap.1.8349422.html|title=GAP moves to recover from child labor scandal|first=Amelia|last=Gentleman|newspaper=The New York Times|date=15 November 2007}}</ref> GAP created strong relationships with developing countries to help prevent child labour and find solutions; GAP would conduct interviews and reach out to their 100,000 employees worldwide to get insight into how they feel about GAP's work environments. This survey concluded with a 68 per cent response rate, and 77 per cent of respondents considered GAP a great environment to work in.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arrigo |first=Elisa |date=2013-01-01 |editor-last=Barnes |editor-first=Liz |editor2-last=Lea-Greenwood |editor2-first=Gaynor |title=Corporate responsibility management in fast fashion companies: the Gap Inc. case |url=https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-10-2011-0074 |journal=Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=175–189 |doi=10.1108/JFMM-10-2011-0074 |issn=1361-2026}}</ref>

===H&M and Zara===
In December 2009, campaigners in the UK called on two leading high street retailers to stop selling clothes made with cotton which may have been picked by children. [[Anti-Slavery International]] and the [[Environmental Justice Foundation]] (EJF) accused [[H&<span class="ltr">M</span>]] and [[Zara (clothing)|Zara]] of using cotton suppliers in Bangladesh. It is also suspected that many of their raw materials originates from Uzbekistan, where children aged 10 are forced to work in the fields. The activists were calling to ban the use of Uzbek cotton and implement a "track and trace" systems to guarantee an ethical responsible source of the material.

H&M said it "does not accept" child labour and "seeks to avoid" using Uzbek cotton, but admitted it did "not have any reliable methods" to ensure Uzbek cotton did not end up in any of its products. [[Inditex]], the owner of Zara, said its code of conduct banned child labour.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://itn.co.uk/d42d75c1cd515910d3b780d161e03b0d.html|title=Stores urged to stop using child labour cotton}}{{dead link |date=April 2024 |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>

===Silk weaving===
A 2003 Human Rights Watch report claimed children as young as five years old were employed and worked for up to 12 hours a day and six to seven days a week in the silk industry.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://inhome.rediff.com/news/2003/jan/23silk.htm|title=Indian silk industry employs child labour: Human Rights Watch|date=23 January 2003|publisher=[[Rediff]]|access-date = 13 March 2019}}</ref> These children, HRW claimed, were bonded [[child labour in India]], easy to find in [[Karnataka]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], and [[Tamil Nadu]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1801/18010660.htm|title=Child Labour: Blood on silk |work=[[Frontline (magazine)|Frontline]]|access-date = 13 March 2019}}</ref>

In 2010, a German news investigative report claimed that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had found up to 10,000 children working in the 1,000 silk factories in 1998. In other locations, thousands of bonded child labourers were present in 1994. After UNICEF and NGOs got involved, the child labour figure dropped drastically after 2005, with the total estimated to be fewer than a thousand child labourers. The report claims the released children were back in school.<ref>{{cite news|title=India: Freeing the Small Hands of the Silk Industry|publisher=Deutsche Welle (Germany)|year=2010|url=https://www.dw.com/en/india-freeing-the-small-hands-of-the-silk-industry/a-1114659|access-date = 13 March 2019}}</ref>

===Primark===
In 2008, the BBC reported<ref>{{cite news |title=Embroidered T-shirt. Price: £4. Cost: Misery |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7468927.stm |work=BBC News |date=23 June 2008 }}</ref> that the company [[Primark]] was using child labour in the manufacture of clothing. In particular, a £4 hand-embroidered shirt was the starting point of a documentary produced by [[BBC]]'s ''[[Panorama (TV series)|Panorama]]'' programme. The programme asks consumers to ask themselves, "Why am I only paying £4 for a hand embroidered top? This item looks handmade. Who made it for such little cost?", in addition to exposing the violent side of the child labour industry in countries where child exploitation is prevalent.

As a result of the BBC report, Royal Television Society awarded it a prize, and Primark took immediate action and fired three Indian suppliers in 2008.<ref>{{cite news |title=Primark fires child worker firms |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7456897.stm |work=BBC News |date=16 June 2008 }}</ref>

Primark continued to investigate the allegations for three years,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.primarkresponse.com/panorama/timeline-of-events/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120911094612/http://www.primarkresponse.com/panorama/timeline-of-events/|url-status=dead|title=Primark's Investigation findings of BBC's fake reporting on child labour, 2011|archivedate=11 September 2012}}</ref> concluding that BBC report was a fake. In 2011, following an investigation by the [[BBC Trust]]'s Editorial Standards Committee, the BBC announced, "Having carefully scrutinised all of the relevant evidence, the committee concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, it was more likely than not that the [[Bangalore]] footage was not authentic." BBC subsequently apologised for faking footage, and returned the television award for investigative reporting.<ref>{{cite news |title=BBC's Primark apology over 'fake' child labour footage |url=https://www.channel4.com/news/bbcs-primark-apology-over-fake-child-labour-footage |work=Channel 4 News |date=16 June 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=BBC to apologise over 'faked footage' in Panorama report about Primark |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8579966/BBC-to-apologise-over-faked-footage-in-Panorama-report-about-Primark.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8579966/BBC-to-apologise-over-faked-footage-in-Panorama-report-about-Primark.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=The Telegraph |date=16 June 2011 }}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Halliday |first1=Josh |title=BBC hands back RTS award for Panorama programme on Primark |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jun/28/bbc-hands-back-panorama-rts-award |work=The Guardian |date=28 June 2011 }}</ref>

==Elimination==
[[File:Breaker boys. Smallest is Angelo Ross. Hughestown Borough Coal Co. Pittston, Pa. - NARA - 523384.jpg|thumb|Child labour in a coal mine, United States, {{Circa|1912}}. Photograph by [[Lewis Hine]].]]
[[File:HN99~Worker 7xKidsWork.jpg|thumb|Different forms of child labour in [[Honduras]], 1999]]

Concerns have often been raised over the buying public's moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in [[developing countries]] with child labour. However, others have raised concerns that [[boycott]]ing products manufactured through child labour may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a [[UNICEF]] study found that after the [[Child Labor Deterrence Act]] was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in [[Bangladesh]], leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution", jobs that are "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production". The study suggests that boycotts are "blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved."<ref name="unicef"/>

According to [[Milton Friedman]], before the Industrial Revolution virtually all children worked in agriculture.<ref name="Schultz2010">{{cite book|first=Robert A. |last=Schultz|title=Information Technology and the Ethics of Globalization: Transnational Issues and Implications|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Fk7pHWGERoC|year=2010|publisher=IGI Global|isbn=978-1-60566-923-6 |quote=Some authors such as conservative Nobel economist Milton Friedman claim that child labour actually decreased during the industrial revolution. He argues that before the industrial revolution almost all children were working in agriculture(...)}}</ref> During the Industrial Revolution many of these children moved from farm work to factory work. Over time, as real wages rose, parents became able to afford to send their children to school instead of work and as a result child labour declined, both before and after legislation.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Cunningham | first1 = Hugh | year = 1990| title = The Employment and Unemployment of Children in England c.1680–1851 | journal = Past and Present | issue =  126| pages =  115–150| doi = 10.1093/past/126.1.115 }}</ref>

British historian and socialist [[E. P. Thompson]] in ''[[The Making of the English Working Class]]'' draws a qualitative distinction between child domestic work and participation in the wider (waged) labour market.<ref name="Thompson"/> Further, the usefulness of the experience of the industrial revolution in making predictions about current trends has been disputed. Social historian Hugh Cunningham, author of ''Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500'', notes that:

{{blockquote|Fifty years ago it might have been assumed that, just as child labour had declined in the developed world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it would also, in a trickle-down fashion, in the rest of the world. Its failure to do that, and its re-emergence in the developed world, raise questions about its role in any economy, whether national or global.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cunningham |first1=Hugh |title=The decline of child labour: labour markets and family economies in Europe and North America since 1830 |journal=The Economic History Review |date=August 2000 |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=409–428 |doi=10.1111/1468-0289.00165 }}</ref>
}}

According to Thomas DeGregori, an economics professor at the [[University of Houston]], in an article published by the [[Cato Institute]], a [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] think-tank operating in Washington D.C., "it is clear that technological and economic change are vital ingredients in getting children out of the workplace and into schools. Then they can grow to become productive adults and live longer, healthier lives. However, in poor countries like Bangladesh, working children are essential for survival in many families, as they were in our own heritage until the late 19th century. So, while the struggle to end child labour is necessary, getting there often requires taking different routes—and, sadly, there are many political obstacles.<ref>{{cite web |last1=DeGregori |first1=Thomas R. |title=Child Labor or Child Prostitution? |url=https://www.cato.org/commentary/child-labor-or-child-prostitution |website=Cato Institute |language=en |date=8 October 2002 }}</ref>

The [[International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour]] (IPEC), founded in 1992, aims to eliminate child labour. It operates in 88 countries and is the largest program of its kind in the world.<ref name=ipec>{{cite web|url=http://www.ilo.org/ipec/programme/lang--en/|title=About the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) (IPEC)|website=www.ilo.org}}</ref> IPEC works with international and government agencies, NGOs, the media, and children and their families to end child labour and provide children with education and assistance.<ref name=ipec/>

From 2008 to 2013, the [[ILO]] operated a program through IPEC entitled "Combating Abusive Child Labour (CACL-II)". The project, funded by the [[European Union]], contributed to the [[Government of Pakistan]] by providing alternative opportunities for vocational training and education to children withdrawn from the worst forms of child labour.<ref name="Combating Abusive Child Labour II">{{cite web|url=http://www.ilo.org/islamabad/whatwedo/projects/WCMS_143210/lang--en/index.htm|title=Combating Abusive Child Labour II|date=1 April 2008}}</ref>

Periodically, governments, employers' and workers' organisations have met in global conference to assess progress and remaining obstacles and to agree measures to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2016: first in [[Oslo]] (1997), followed by: [[The Hague]] (2010); [[Brasília]], 8–10 October 2013;<ref>ILO, [http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/BrasiliaConference/lang--en/index.htm III Global Conference on Child Labour - Brasilia, 8–10 October 2013]</ref> [[Buenos Aires]], 14–16 November 2017;<ref>ILO, [http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/BuenosAiresConference/lang--it/index.htm IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour, Buenos Aires, 14-16 November 2017], accessed 17 June 2017</ref> and most recently [[Durban]], South Africa, 15–20 May 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |title=5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour |url=https://www.5thchildlabourconf.org/en/home |access-date=2022-06-07 |website=www.5thchildlabourconf.org |language=en}}</ref>

Between 2000 and 2012, progress was made against child labour but the elimination of its worst forms was not accomplished.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013 |title=Marking progress against child labour |url=https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---ipec/documents/publication/wcms_221513.pdf |access-date=November 25, 2022 |publisher=International Labour Organization }}</ref>
Under the [[Sustainable Development Goals]] (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, UN Member States, employers' and workers' organisations, and civil society organisations are required to work together to eliminate child labour by 2025, forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking by 2030. Thus, the ILO established Alliance 8.7 as a global partnership.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/BuenosAiresConference/lang--en/index.htm|title = IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour, Buenos Aires, 14-16 November 2017 (IPEC)| date=28 January 2024 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/sdg-2030/goal-8/target-8-7/WCMS_803310/lang--en/index.htm|title = Digital Information Systems for collaborative work to end child labour, forced labour and human trafficking|date = 16 June 2021}}</ref>

In January 2021, the ILO published the Child Labour Global Estimates 2020 in collaboration with UNICEF.<ref name="ilo.org">{{Cite web |title=Child Labour {{!}} Global Estimates 2020, Trends and the Road Forward |url=https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@ipec/documents/publication/wcms_797515.pdf |access-date=November 25, 2022 |publisher=International Labour Organization and United Nations Children's Fund}}</ref> According to the report child labour decreased by 38% from 246 million in 2000 to 152 million in 2016.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_766351/lang--en/index.htm | title=2021: International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour | date=15 January 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://endchildlabour2021.org/ |title=Home - International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour |publisher=Endchildlabour2021.org |date= |accessdate=2022-02-11}}</ref> Due to [[COVID-19 pandemic]] the number of children in child labour increased by 9 million.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/child-labour-rises-160-million-first-increase-two-decades |title=Child labour rises to 160 million – first increase in two decades |publisher=Unicef.org |date= |accessdate=2022-02-11}}</ref>

==Statistics==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+Number of children involved in ILO categories of work, by age and gender in 2002 
|-
!  !! All Children <br />(2002)<ref>{{cite book |title=Every child counts: new global estimates on child labour |date=2002 |publisher=ILO/IPEC |isbn=978-92-2-113113-7 }}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref> !! Economically Active Children  !! Economically Active Children (%) !! Child Labour  !! Child Labour (%) !! Children in Hazardous Work  !! Children in Hazardous Work (%)
|-
| Ages 5–11 || 838,800,000 || 109,700,000 || 13.1 || 109,700,000 || 13.1 || 60,500,000 || 7.2
|-
| Ages 12–14 || 360,600,000 || 101,100,000 || 28.0 || 76,000,000 || 21.1 || 50,800,000 || 14.1
|-
| Ages 5–14 || 1,199,400,000 || 210,800,000 || 17.6 || 186,300,000 || 15.5 || 111,300,000 || 9.3
|-
| Ages 15–17 || 332,100,000 || 140,900,000 || 42.4 || 59,200,000 || 17.8 || 59,200,000 || 17.8
|-
| Boys || 786,600,000 || 184,100,000 || 23.4 || 132,200,000 || 16.8 || 95,700,000 || 12.2
|-
| Girls || 744,900,000 || 167,600,000 || 22.5 || 113,300,000 || 15.2 || 74,800,000 || 10.5
|-
| Total || 1,531,500,000 || 351,700,000 || 23.0 || 245,500,000 || 16.0 || 170,500,000 || 11.1
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+ Numbers and percentage of children aged 5 to 17 years in child labour and hazardous work in 2016 and 2020<ref name="ilo.org"/>
|-
!  !!Child labour !! Child labour(%) !! Children in hazardous work !! Children in hazardous work (%)
|-
|Ages 5– 11 || 89,300,000 || 9.7 || 25,900,000 || 2.8
|-
|Ages 12– 14||35,600,000 ||9.3 ||18,100,000|| 4.8
|-
|Ages 15– 17||35,000,000||9.5 ||35,000,000||9.5
|-
|Boys (2016)|| 87,500,000||10.7||44,800,000||5.5
|-
|Girls (2016)|| 64,100,000||8.4||27,800,000||3.6
|-
|World total (2016)|| 151,600,000||9.6||72,500,000||4.6
|-
|Boys (2020)|| 97,000,000||11.2||50,200,000||5.8
|-
|Girls (2020)|| 62,900,000||7.8||28,800,000||3.6
|-
|World total (2020)|| 160,000,000||9.6||79,000,000||4.7
|}

==Potential positives==

The term ''child labour'' can be misleading when it confuses harmful work with employment that may be beneficial to children. It can also ignore harmful work outside employment and any benefits children normally derive from their work.<ref>For examples see Bourdillon et al pp 1-6, 180-194.  Pp 195-200 offer an alternative and more effective approach to protecting working children.</ref> Domestic work is an example: all families but the rich must work at cleaning, cooking, caring, and more to maintain their homes. In most families in the world, this process extends to productive activities, especially herding and various types of agriculture,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Polak |first1=Barbara |chapter=Peasants in the Making: Bamana children at work |pages=87–112 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gJg77Us0lWAC&pg=PA87 |editor1-last=Spittler |editor1-first=Gerd |editor2-last=Bourdillon |editor2-first=M. F. C. |title=African Children at Work: Working and Learning in Growing Up for Life |date=2012 |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |isbn=978-3-643-90205-4 }}</ref> and to a variety of small family businesses. Where trading is a significant feature of social life, children can start trading in small items at an early age, often in the company of family members or of peers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Invernizzi |first1=Antonella |title=Street-Working Children and Adolescents in Lima: Work as an Agent of Socialization |journal=Childhood |date=August 2003 |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=319–341 |doi=10.1177/09075682030103005 |s2cid=145807965 }}</ref>

Work is undertaken from an early age by vast numbers of children in the world and may have a natural place in growing up.<ref name="Bourdillon 2010">{{cite book|last=Bourdillon|first=Michael|title=Rights and Wrongs of Children's Work|date=2010|publisher=Rutgers University Press|location=New Brunswick|author2=Deborah Levison |author3=William Myers |author4=Ben White }}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref>
Work can contribute to the well-being of children in a variety of ways;<ref>{{cite book|last=Bourdillon|first=Michael|title="Children's Work" in Handbook of Child-Well Being|date=2013|publisher=Springer|editor=Asher Ben-Arieh}}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref> children often choose to work to improve their lives, both in the short- and long-term. At the material level, children's work often contributes to producing food or earning income that benefits themselves and their families; and such income is especially important when the families are poor. Work can provide an escape from debilitating poverty, sometimes by allowing a young person to move away from an impoverished environment.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hashim|first=Iman M.|title=Child Migration in Africa|date=2011|publisher=Zed Books|location=London|author2=Dorte Thorsen}}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref> Young people often enjoy their work, especially paid work, or when work involves the company of peers. Even when work is intensive and enforced, children often find ways to combine their work with play.<ref>{{cite book|last=Katz|first=Cindi|title=Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children's Everyday Lives|date=2004|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|location=Minneapolis|isbn=0-8166-4209-5}}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref>

While full-time work hinders schooling, empirical evidence is varied on the relationship between part-time work and school.<ref name="Bourdillon 2010"/> Sometimes even part-time work may hinder school attendance or performance. On the other hand, many poor children work for resources to attend school. Children who are not doing well at school sometimes seek more satisfactory experience in work. Good relations with a supervisor at work can provide relief from tensions that children feel at school and home.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Call|first1=Kathleen|title=Arenas of Comfort in Adolescence: A Study of Adjustment in Context|date=2001|publisher=Lawrence Erlbaum Associates|location=London|first2=Jeylan T.|last2=Mortimer|isbn=978-1-135-68216-3}}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref> In the modern world, school education has become so central to society that schoolwork has become the dominant work for most children,<ref>{{Citation|last =Qvortrup|first =Jens |contribution =School-Work, Paid Work and the Changing Obligations of Childhood|year =2001|title =Hidden Hands: International Perspectives on Children's Work and Labour|editor-last =Mizen|editor-first =Philip|place =London|publisher=Routledge}}{{page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref> often replacing participation in productive work. If school curricula or quality do not provide children with appropriate skills for available jobs or if children do not have the aptitude for schoolwork, school may impede the learning of skills, such as agriculture, which will become necessary for future livelihood.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=White |first1=Ben |title=Agriculture and the Generation Problem: Rural Youth, Employment and the Future of Farming |journal=IDS Bulletin |date=November 2012 |volume=43 |issue=6 |pages=9–19 |doi=10.1111/j.1759-5436.2012.00375.x |url=http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/7535 }}</ref>

== In media ==

* [[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]] addresses this issue in scathing terms in her poem {{ws|[[s:The Vow of the Peacock and Other Poems/The Factory|The Factory]]}} (1835). '''Tis an accursed thing!''—she writes.
* ''[[Oliver Twist]]'', a novel by [[Charles Dickens]] that was later adapted into films and into a theater production.
* "[[The Little Match Girl]]", a short story by [[Hans Christian Andersen]] that was later adapted into films and other media.
* ''[[Gunjal (2023)|Gunjal]]'', a film by Shoaib Sultan based on the child labour activist [[Iqbal Masih]] tragic murder.

==See also==<!-- New links in alphabetical order please -->
{{Portal|Organised labour}}
[[File:Activism poster to prevent Child Labor, United States early 20th century.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Lewis Hine]] used photography to help bring attention to child labour in America. He created this poster in 1914 with an appeal about child labour.]]
{{Div col|colwidth=50em}}
* [[Child abuse]]
* [[Child labour in Africa]]
* [[Child labour in Bangladesh]]
* [[Child labour in India]]
* [[Child migration]]
* [[Child prostitution]]
* [[Child work in indigenous American cultures]]
* [[Children in cocoa production]]
* [[Children's rights movement]]
* [[Concerned for Working Children]]
<!-- * [[Every day Against Child Labour]] -->
* [[Ethical consumerism]]
* [[History of childhood]]
* [[International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour]], IPEC
* [[International Research on Working Children]]
* [[Kinder der Landstrasse]], Switzerland
* [[Labour law]]
* [[Legal working age]]
* [[List of global issues]]
* [[London matchgirls strike of 1888]]
* [[Newsboys Strike of 1899|Newsboys strike of 1899]], successful strike in New York
* [[Street children]]
* [[Sweatshop]]
* [[Trafficking of children]]
* [[World Day Against Child Labour]]
{{Div col end}}

'''International conventions and other instruments:'''
* [[Pilot project on Delivery of water to households far from sources of safe water]]
* [https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20111205032813/http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?C029 ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29)]
* [https://archive.today/20120802225908/http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?C105 ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105)]
* [https://archive.today/20120803220358/http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?C138 ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138)]
* [https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20111031202538/http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?C182 ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182)]

==Notes==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==References==
* [https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/publications/WCMS_081913/lang--en/index.htm ILO Minimum Estimate of Forced Labour in the World. (2005)]
* [http://www.ilo.org/sapfl/Informationresources/ILOPublications/lang--en/docName--WCMS_106268/index.htm The Cost of Coercion ILO 2009]
* International Labour Office. (2005). [https://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc93/pdf/rep-i-b.pdf A global alliance against forced labour]
* [https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/publications/WCMS_105023/lang--en/index.htm Operational Indicators of Trafficking in Human Beings 2009] ILO/SAP-FL
* [https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/publications/WCMS_105884/lang--en/index.htm Lists of indicators of Trafficking in Human Beings 2009] ILO/SAP-FL
* [https://www.ilo.org/ilc/WCMS_089199/lang--en/index.htm Eradication of forced labour – General Survey concerning the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105)] – ILO 2007
* [https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/publications/WCMS_081991/lang--en/index.htm Forced Labour: Definition, Indicators and Measurement 2004] – ILO
* [https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/meetingdocument/kd00014.pdf Stopping Forced Labour 2001] – ILO
*{{cite book |last1=Agbu |first1=Osita |title=Children and Youth in the Labour Process in Africa |date=2009 |publisher=African Books Collective |isbn=978-2-86978-251-8 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/16811 }}
*{{cite book |title=Life of Charles Dickens |last=Forster |first=John |author-link=John Forster (biographer) |publisher=Diderot Publishing |location=London |year=2006 |orig-year=1872–1874 |isbn=978-90-77932-03-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P6q4kaimO0AC&pg=PA27 |access-date=2 July 2015 |archive-date=21 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921155109/https://books.google.com/books?id=P6q4kaimO0AC&pg=PA27 |url-status=live }}
*{{cite book |last1=Lieten |first1=Kristoffel |last2=Meerkerk |first2=Elise van Nederveen |title=Child Labour's Global Past, 1650–2000 |date=2011 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-3-0343-0517-4 }}
*{{cite book |last1=Honeyman |first1=Katrina |title=Childhood and Child Labour in Industrial England: Diversity and Agency, 1750–1914 |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-16792-1 }}

==Further reading==
===Recent===
* Baland, Jean-Marie and James A. Robinson (2000) 'Is child labour inefficient?' [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jpe/current ''Journal of Political Economy''] 108, 663–679
* Basu, Kaushik, and Homa Zarghamee (2009) 'Is product boycott a good idea for controlling child labour? A theoretical investigation' [http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505546/description#description ''Journal of Development Economics''] 88, 217–220
* Bhukuth, Augendra. "Defining child labour: a controversial debate" [https://web.archive.org/web/20100325204233/http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09614524.asp ''Development in Practice''] (2008) 18, 385–394
* {{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Patrick M. |last2=Portela Souza |first2=André |year=2011| title=Is Child Labour Harmful? The Impact of Working Earlier in Life on Adult Earnings |journal=Economic Development and Cultural Change |volume=59 |issue=2| pages=345–385 |doi=10.1086/657125 |pmid=21174883 |hdl=10419/34334 |s2cid=21994733 |url=https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3027 |hdl-access=free}} uses data from Brazil to show very strong negative effects—boys who work before age 14 earn much less as adults
* Humbert, Franziska. ''The Challenge of Child Labour in International Law'' (2009)
* Humphries, Jane. ''Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution'' (2010)
* [[International Labour Organization|ILO]], [http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---webdev/documents/publication/wcms_071311.pdf Investing in every child: An economic Study of the Costs and Benefits of Eliminating Child Labour]
* Mayer, Gerald. ''[https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31501.pdf Child Labor in America: History, Policy, and Legislative Issues.]'' Washington, D.C.: [[Congressional Research Service]], 2013.
* Ravallion, Martin, and Quentin Wodon (2000) 'Does child labour displace schooling? Evidence on behavioural responses to an enrollment subsidy' [http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0013-0133 ''Economic Journal''] 110, C158-C175

===History===
* {{cite journal | last1 = Anderson | first1 = Elisabeth | year = 2018 | title = Policy Entrepreneurs and the Origins of the Regulatory Welfare State: Child Labor Reform in Nineteenth-Century Europe | journal = American Sociological Review | volume = 83 | issue = 1| pages = 173–211 | doi = 10.1177/0003122417753112 | doi-access = free }} comparison France and Germany, with a bibliography of primary and secondary sources
* {{cite journal | last1 = Anderson | first1 = Elisabeth | year = 2013 | title = Ideas in Action: The Politics of Prussian Child Labor Reform, 1817–1839 | journal = Theory and Society | volume = 42 | issue = 1| pages = 81–119 | doi = 10.1007/s11186-012-9186-4 | s2cid = 143867112 | url = http://archive.nyu.edu/handle/2451/64432 }}
* "Child Employing Industries," ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' Vol. 35, Mar. 1910 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/i242607 in JSTOR], articles by experts in 1910
* Goldberg, Ellis. ''Trade, Reputation, and Child Labour in Twentieth-Century Egypt'' (2004) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312296290/ excerpt and text search]
* Grier, Beverly. ''Invisible Hands: Child Labour and the State in Colonial Zimbabwe'' (2005)
* Hindman, Hugh D. ''Child Labour: An American History'' (2002)
* {{cite journal | last1 = Humphries | first1 = Jane | last2 = Horrell | first2 = Sara | year = 1995 | title = 'The Exploitation of Little Children': Child Labour and the Family Economy in the Industrial Revolution | journal = Explorations in Economic History | volume = 32 | issue = 4| pages = 485–516 | doi=10.1006/exeh.1995.1021}}
* Humphries, Jane. ''Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution'' (Cambridge Studies in Economic History) (2011) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521248965/ excerpt and text search]
* Kirby, Peter. ''Child Labour in Britain, 1750-1870'' (2003) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0333671945/ excerpt and text search]
* Lovejoy, Owen R. "Child labor in the coal mines." ''The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 27.2 (1906): 35–41. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1010788.pdf online]
* McGill, Nettie Pauline. ''The welfare of children in bituminous coal mining communities in West Virginia'' (US Government Printing Office, 1923) [https://books.google.com/books?id=fmvSYhyA6pcC&dq=children+coal+mining&pg=PP10 online].
* McIntosh, Robert. ''Boys in the pits: Child labour in coal mines'' (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2000), Canadian mines
* {{cite Q|Q107325671}}<!-- Labour and Childhood -->
* {{cite journal |last1=Meerkerk |first1=E. v. N. |last2=Schmidt |first2=A. |title=Between Wage Labor and Vocation: Child Labor in Dutch Urban Industry, 1600-1800 |journal=Journal of Social History |date=1 March 2008 |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=717–736 |doi=10.1353/jsh.2008.0041 |jstor=25096529 |hdl=1887/13096 |s2cid=154737479 |hdl-access=free }}
* Mofford, Juliet. ''Child Labour in America'' (1970)
* Tuttle, Carolyn. ''Hard at Work in Factories And Mines: The Economics of Child Labour During The British Industrial Revolution'' (1999)

==External links==
{{Youth rights sidebar}}
{{wiktionary}}
{{Commons category|Child labour}}
{{wikiquote}}
*[https://maxwellhalsted.uic.edu/home/girls-mothers-children-everywhere/child-labor Child Labor, Child Bondage, Why Children Work]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140414072608/http://www.dol.gov/ilab/issues/child-labor/ Combating Child Labor] — Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120630033018/http://www.childinfo.org/labour_countrydata.php A UNICEF web resource with tables of % children who work for a living, by country and gender]
* [http://www.awesomestories.com/history/child-labor/children-in-the-fields Rare child labour photos from the U.S. Library of Congress]
* [http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/  History Place] Photographs from 1908 to 1912
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20191221185856/http://www.irewoc.nl/ International Research on Child Labour]
* [http://www.ilo.org/ipec/lang--en/index.htm International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour] International Labour Organization (<span class="ltr">UN</span>)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100721154252/http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/WDACL/lang--en/index.htm World Day Against Child Labour] 12 June
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070601174639/http://www.workingchild.org/ Concerned for Working Children] An India-based non-profit organisation working towards elimination of child labour
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090430193316/http://uk.oneworld.net/guides/childlabour The OneWorld guide to child labour]
* [https://www.unicef.org/reports/state-of-worlds-children The State of the World's Children – a UNICEF study]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tY1gk6J6zc "United States Child Labour, 1908–1920: As Seen Through the Lens of Sociologist and Photographer Lewis W. Hine"] (video)
* Child Labour in Chile, 1880–1950 [http://www.memoriachilena.cl//temas/documento_detalle.asp?id=MC0030445 download complete text, in spanish]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20171011041030/http://www.12to12.org/ 12 to 12 community portal] ILO sponsored website on the elimination of child labour
* [http://www.ilo.org/sapfl/lang--en/index.htm The ILO Special Action Programme to combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL)]
{{World topic|prefix=Child labor in|noredlinks=yes|title=Child labor}}
{{Social accountability}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Child labour| ]]
[[Category:Childhood]]
[[Category:History of youth]]
[[Category:Children's rights]]
[[Category:Labor rights]]
[[Category:Ethically disputed working conditions]]