10.06.2014
Child labour: Cross-sector study on the exploitation of children published to mark World Day Against Child Labour
According to estimates, 5.5 million children worldwide are victims of forced labour. Whether in Ghana’s informal electronics recycling sector, Cambodian tourist destinations or cocoa farms in West Africa: Ethical Risk Assessments show that children working under coercion can be found in all these sectors.
Obtaining reliable data on exactly how many children are involved, how old they are, and for how long and under what conditions they work on average in situations of dependency remains very difficult due to the illegal nature of the work and numerous grey areas.
The study by terre des hommes, in collaboration with the Südwind Institute and the Hamburger Stiftung für Wirtschaftsethik, sheds light on this data gap and examines how children end up in forced labour, the methods and promises used to ‘recruit’ them , what activities they carry out, and how the sectors differ in this regard. Finally, it identifies responsibilities and sets out initial recommendations for governments, companies and civil society actors to successfully combat the exploitation of children.
You can download the study and the press release from the children’s charity terre des hommes here