child labor facts

Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries. Child labour was employed to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the advent of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during the industrial revolution, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights.

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works (excluding household chores, in a family shop, or school-related work)An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age. This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1973, have adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and without parents' consent at age 16he incidence of child labour in the world decreased from 25 to 10 percent between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank. * The International Labour Organization estimates that 215 million children ages 5-17 are engaged in child labor (ILO, Accelerating action against child labour, 2010).

* An estimated 12 percent of children in India ages 5-14 are engaged in child labor activities, including carpet production (UNICEF, State of the World’s Children 2010).

* Approximately six out of ten slaves in the world are bonded laborers in South Asia (Siddharth Kara, Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, 2008)

* It would cost $760 billion over a 20-year period to end child labor. The estimated benefit in terms of better education and health is about six times that—over $4 trillion in economies where child laborers are found (ILO, Investing in Every Child, 2003).

* Some children are forced to work up to 18 hours a day, often never leaving the confines of the factory or loom shed.

* Children trafficked into one form of labor may be later sold into another, as with girls from rural Nepal, who are recruited to work in carpet factories but are then trafficked into the sex industry over the border in India (ILO/IPEC, Helping Hands or Shackled Lives? Understanding Child Domestic Labour and Responses to It, 2004).

* Experts estimate that child labor on South Asia’s carpet looms has dropped from 1 million to 250,000 since the launch of GoodWeave in 1995.