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These are the faces of children
who once labored in workshops, in
factories, in mines, in pesticide
laden fields. Children who were
being robbed of their
childhood and a chance for an
education and a better future.
Whose health and even lives were
put at risk. Once, they were
among the 218 million children
that the United Nations'
International Labor Organization,
the ILO, estimates to be involved
in child labor. Today, instead of
working in harmful situations
these children are attending
school and training programs
thanks to projects supported by
the United States. Children who
are old enough to legally work are
no longer involved in exploitive
labor and are also receiving
educational services. In 1999,
the U.S. became one of a still
growing number of countries to
sign an ILO resolution to combat
child labor. Convention 182
targets the very worst forms of
child labor, including forced or
slave labor, child
trafficking, commercial ***
exploitation, the use of children
in armed conflicts and illegal
activities, and working conditions
that are likely to
jeopardize the safety and health
of children. In ratifying the
convention, the U.S. pledged to
vigorously continue our fight
against child labor. And we
have, in fact, since 1995 Congress
has provided the Department of
Labor over 720 million dollars to
support projects to combat and
prevent the worst forms of
child labor. A major focus of
these projects is to provide
quality education, the key
alternative and a way out of the
cycle of child labor and poverty.
Over the years, the Department of
Labor has supported hundreds of
projects to combat child labor in
over 80 countries across sub
Saharan Africa, the
Americas, Asia, and Europe, the
Middle East, and North Africa.
These efforts have yielded
tangible results. In fact,
Department of Labor projects have
rescued more than 1 million
children from exploitive child
labor and provided them with
education, training, and other
services. Experience has shown
that we need the involvement of
many different people and groups
to eradicate child labor
successfully. We have many
partners in our success:
international, national, and local
organizations, the private sector
and the governments of the
countries where the projects
operate, local communities,
parents, teachers,
doctors and even the children
themselves are all so key to the
success of our efforts. Some of
our projects are at the national
level supporting national
laws and policies that discourage
child labor. The heart of our
work, though, is at the local
level where children live and
work. The main focus,
education. We know that when
education is available to children
and affordable for parents, when
children are clearly learning and
families see the value of
schooling, then education becomes
the preferred alternative to child
labor of any kind. Communities
and children have different kinds
of educational needs
so our programs create different
kinds of learning opportunities.
Younger children, who are able to
transition into the formal
education system, are
enrolled in schools often with
material support such as uniforms
and books, or scholarships to make
education an affordable option.
After school programs
are often made available for extra
support during hours when
children may otherwise return to
work. Children who are in school
for the first time are now
catching up in non-formal programs
that bridge their entry into
mainstream schooling. Youngsters
15 years of age and older are
getting vocational training
and learning the skills they need
for a better future. Meanwhile,
our programs are training teachers
and reforming curricula so
children stay in school and
understand the value and relevance
of education to their lives.
Parents see how much their
children love to learn. Pride
wins them over and they come to
support their children's education
and dreams. Some programs also
make it easier for
families to choose to keep
children in school and out of
exploitive labor. We show parents
how to generate alternative
income so they don't have to rely
on their children's labor. We
organize community members to
monitor child free labor
conditions and make sure children
are in school. And, we help
employer groups maintain child
free work forces and support
education for former child
workers. We raise everyone's
awareness that child labor is
destructive and that schooling
benefits every child. And we step
into help communities when a
crisis, such as a natural
disaster, puts children at special
risk of exploitation. Parents,
and communities, become their
children's best allies in choosing
education over labor. But our
work is far from over, hundreds of
millions more children still
spend their days laboring instead
of learning and many more remain
at risk. That's why our projects
also use strategies to build
countries own capacity to keep
children out of exploitive labor.
Activities such as training labor
inspectors, providing expert
assistance on legal and policy
reform, and strengthening national
data collection and monitoring
efforts will contribute to
continued progress long after a
project ends. So the United
States investment in strengthening
communities, transforming lives,
and restoring the promise of
children will continue to have an
impact. Year by year, we can see
what a difference all the people
of the United States are making.
Children are reclaiming their
future and ending the cycles of
poverty that have plagued their
families and societies for
generations. We can see it in the
faces of children and their families.
A future of promise.