Childlabor
...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. About one-fifth of the world’s 6 billion people live in absolute poverty. The intensified poverty in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America causes many children there to become child laborers.
Access to compulsory, free education is limited.
Approximately 125 million children in the world do not attend school, limiting future opportunities for the children and their communities. The Global Campaign for Education estimates that free, quality education for all children would cost ten billion dollars, the same as 4 days of global military spending.
Existing laws or codes of conduct are often violated.
Even when laws or codes of conduct exist, they are often violated. For example, the manufacture and export of products often involves multiple layers of production and outsourcing, which can make it difficult to monitor who is performing labor at each step of the process. Extensive subcontracting can intentionally or unintentionally hide the use of child labor.
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...
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