Workers’ rights are repressed.
Workers’ abilities to organize unions affect the international protection of core labor standards, including child labor. Attacks on workers’ abilities to organize make it more difficult to improve labor standards and living standards in order to eliminate child labor. For example, in 2010, 5,000 workers were fired and 2,500 workers were arrested as a result of their union activity, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.slt
Causes of Child Labor
Child labor persists even though laws and standards to eliminate it exist. Current causes of global child labor are similar to its causes in the U.S. 100 years ago, including poverty, limited access to education, repression of workers’ rights, and limited prohibitions on child labor.
Poverty and unemployment levels are high.
Poor children and their families may rely upon child labor in order to improve their chances of attaining basic necessities. More than one-fourth of the world's people live in extreme poverty, according to 2005 U.N. statistics. The intensified poverty in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America causes many children there to become child laborers.
Laws and enforcement are often inadequate.
Child labor laws around the world are often not enforced or include exemptions that allow for child labor to persist in certain sectors, such as agriculture or domestic work. Even in countries where strong child labor laws exist, labor departments and labor inspection offices are often under-funded and under-staffed, or courts may fail to enforce the laws. Similarly, many state governments allocate few resources to enforcing child labor laws.
National Laws Often Include Exemptions
