The UN announced plans in early May to combat child labor, using novel, different strategies that have worked for many countries. Let's take a look...
Their
World Report on Child Labor states that by introducing measures such as cash transfers to both parents and older people, as well as other social health measures, parents in the developing world are more likely to let their children go to school instead of forcing them into work early.
Brazil's Bolsa Familia cash transfer program, which provides families with a monthly allowance on the condition that they send their children to school, has been instrumental in reducing child labor in both rural and urban areas across the Latin American nation. Likewise, a scholarship program introduced in Cambodia, which also involves cash transfers, has reduced child labor there by
10 percent.
Social protection is also an important issue concerning child labor. More than 5 billion people around the world do not have access to comprehensive social protection. This massive figure contributes to the vast number of child laborers around the world. including the 115 million involved in the worst forms of child labor, debt bondage and prostitution included, and the 15.5 million involved in domestic work.
UN plans would guarantee basic income in the form of social transfers in cash or kind, such as pensions, child benefits, employment guarantees and services for the unemployed or working poor, while providing universal access to the essential basics of life. Those would include health, water and sanitation, education, food, and housing. In African countries when 50-60% of orphans live with their grandparents, income security in old age would also be extremely important.
These plans seem solid in theory, but they are much harder to implement in practice. The UN also estimates that it would cost $10 billion to implement universal education - Less than global military spending per year. Where does this money go? It gets lost somewhere along the line, never making its long journey from the big organizations to the poor, starving families in Africa and Asia. Child labor is a complicated problem. But each step we take is one step towards a better future.
The world's newest and youngest liberation movement will make its presence felt at a summit in Washington this week. The Common Forum for Kalmal Hari Freedom, the Nilphamari Child Marriage Free Zone, the Ugandan Child Protection Club, the Upper Manya Krobo Rights of the Child Club and Indonesia's Grobogan Child Empowerment Group may not yet be household names outside their own countries, but schoolgirls demanding an end to child labor, child marriage, and child trafficking - and inspired by the sacrifice of Malala Yousafzai - are borrowing the tactics of the US civil rights movement. Once cowed and silent, these young civil rights leaders have become defiant and assertive, and they are linking up across the world to demand justice for the 32 million girls and 29 million boys still denied places at school.
