Child labor is defined as the exploitation of children who are either too young to work or are engaged in work that compromises their education and development. World-wide, about 160 million kids are engaged in child labor. Of these, about half, some 79 million, work under hazardous conditions.
Every two years, as part of an effort to protect workers’ rights everywhere, the United States Department of Labor issues two reports, Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor and the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor. The list of goods “provides an overview of global labor exploitation worldwide, affecting tens of millions of lives and intersecting with some of the most pressing issues of our time,” said Thea Mei Lee, the U.S. Labor Department’s Deputy Undersecretary for International Labor Affairs.
There are three troubling trends, she said. “First is the expanding global footprint of forced labor and child labor.”
“The expansion highlights that current public and private sector efforts to address labor exploitation are not keeping pace with evolving global manufacturing trends that put workers at risk – at risk of unsafe working conditions, of exploitative child labor, of forced labor, or repression for trying to organize a union.”
“The second trend … is the growing number of critical minerals that are produced with child labor or forced labor,” she said.
“There are now 12 on the list. Children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Bolivia are mining critical minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, tantalum, tin, tungsten, and zinc. They toil in poorly regulated artisanal and small-scale mines, performing dangerous tasks such as digging tunnels, carrying heavy loads, and handling toxic substances.”
Finally, “The third trend worth noting is the labor exploitation driving China’s global production dominance.”
“Since at least 2016, the Government of the People’s Republic of China has subjected Uyghurs and members of other predominately Muslim ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang to genocide, state-imposed forced labor, and crimes against humanity,” she said.
“This escalation is deeply concerning, as China is a leading – if not the leading – global exporter of almost all of certain tainted metals,” said Under Secretary Lee.
Forced labor and child labor are all too common globally. It is the job of governments to make sure that nobody is profiting from exploitation of children because this is a heinous crime.
