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SCREAM Stop Child Labour
Supporting Children's Rights through Education, Arts, and Media
What is child labour?
Child labour is about the exploitation of the most vulnerable in our society - children. According to the latest estimates of the ILO, there are just over 245 million children below the age of 18 working in the world. Approximately 180 million of them work in the worst forms of child labour, toiling in hazardous and life-threatening conditions. Many are deprived of an education and suffer physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Some will be physically handicapped or even die before reaching adulthood as a direct result of their labour. Others will be emotionally scarred for life.
For many, child labour is an invisible phenomenon, invisible because children work in hidden occupations, such as domestic work and prostitution, or invisible because society is only too willing to turn a blind eye.
Making child labourers visible will help strip society of its indifference to their plight.
Young people as a force for change
IPEC is spearheading international efforts to make child labour a thing of the past. Since the root causes of child labour are many and complex, IPEC is tackling the issue on several fronts, through the ratification and implementation of international conventions, practical programmes on the ground and the mobilization of key sectors of society. One of these is young people.
IPEC recognizes that young people have an important role to play in raising awareness of issues of social justice and exerting their influence in their communities to bring about social change. By empowering young people, giving them responsibility and recognizing the value of their contribution, IPEC hopes to harness the wealth of creativity and commitment that they can bring to the campaign to eliminate child labour.
People, young and old, must become more aware of what is happening in their world. If society closes its eyes to unpleasant realities, it is shirking its responsibility and knowingly condemning a massive number of children to a future of poverty, misery and hard labour. Worse still, if society does not actively open the eyes of its children so that they can understand what is happening out there in the world, it is condemning them to a lifetime of ignorance and indifference. This is not fair and it is not right.
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