Child Worker

WASHINGTON: India, Bangladesh and the Philippines lead theworld in the number of products made by child workers, a US government stock-taking of the global scale of underaged labour revealed Monday.

Some 130 types of goods — from building bricks and soccer balls to pornography and rare ores used in cellphones — involve child labour in 71 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Department of Labour said.“We believe that we all have God-given potential…and every child should be given the right to fulfil their dreams,” said Labour Secretary Hilda Solis at the release of the 10th annual “Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labour”.Focusing this year on hazardous work performed by children, and relying in good part on International Labour Organisation data, the report examines efforts by more than 140 countries to address the worst forms of child labour.The International Labour Organisation estimates that more than 215 million children are involved in child labour.One-third of countries have yet to define hazardous kinds of work prohibited to children, it said. Some nations have no minimum age for such work, and still more lack the means to monitor and enforce bans on dangerous child labour.A rundown of goods produced by child labour, issued alongside the report, underlined the degree to which youngsters in developing nations are forced to work, rather than go to school, for little if any wages.India topped the list, with its children being used to make no fewer than 20 products, including bidis, bricks, fireworks, footwear, glass bangles, incense, locks, matches, rice, silk fabric and thread, and soccer balls.India also led a separate list of products made by forced or indentured child labour — seven types of goods in all, including carpets, embroidered textiles and garments.In Bangladesh, children produced 14 kinds of goods, many of them of an industrial nature, such as bricks, footwear, steel furniture, leather, matches, and textiles including jute.In the Philippines, children took part in the production of bananas, coconuts, corn, fashion accessories, gold, hogs, pornography, pyrotechnics, rice, rubber, sugar cane and tobacco.The Department of Labour announced Monday a $15 million grant to the World Vision charity “to address the worst forms of child labour in sugar cane production” in the Philippines.(AFP)