Child Labor

The term ‘child labor’ is defined as work that deprives children, from 0 -15 year, of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, their right to education and/or that is harmful to physical and mental development. In addition, extreme forms of labor performed by children between 15 and 18 years also fall within the definition of child labor. The UN convention on the rights of the child prohibits child labor.

• that worldwide 168 million children are involved in child labor?
• that Asia has the largest number of child labor, especially India, but that in Sub-Saharan Africa also 1 in every 5 children has to work?
• that children usually work because their parents do not earn enough money, but that child labor only maintains the poverty?
• children have the right to be protected from slavery and forced labor, the right to education and the right to play?

KidsRights works together with local partners to stand up for the rights of the children through research, action and advocacy.

Om Prakash, winner of the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2006, was liberated by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and then was taken care of in a family home. In 2006 BBA nominated Om Prakash for the International Children’s Peace Prize because of his fight against child labor in India. From the same year KidsRights started supporting BBA to support Om Prakash in his fight again child labor.

With the KidsRights Changemakers Program, we connect, inspire and activate young people all around the world to make a change for children’s rights.  You can find the changemakers that fight against child labor here.

KidsRights has published three reports on child labour providing more background information and figures on child domestic labor in Nepal and on dangerous work on the cocoa plantation in Ivory Coast and in the mines in Burkina Faso.