Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Chicago Tribune - May 7, 2002
Stephen Franklin, Tribune staff reporter
About 180 million youngsters--one of eight children ages 5 to 17--are exposed to "the worst forms of child labor," said the report from the 83-year-old organization based in Geneva.
Among these young workers, 8.4 million are pressed into slavery, prostitution, pornography or forced military service, the report estimated.
Although various nations have begun curtailing child labor, it remains "one of the most urgent challenges of our time," said Juan Somavia, director general of the International Labor Office. From programs in six countries a decade ago, the ILO's efforts on behalf of reducing child labor have reached 75 nations today, the report pointed out.
The global spread of AIDS is one reason for the the problem, the report suggested. About 13 million children have been orphaned as a result of the disease, and many have turned to work to survive, the report said.
At the same time, fears of the disease have created a "flow of ever-younger girls" into sexual exploitation, the report noted.
Cambodian sex traffickers, for example, seek girls from rural Vietnam because it is assumed that they have not been exposed to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the report said.
Likewise, thousands of children left behind in the remnants of war have been forced to support themselves and others. In Rwanda, about 60,000 households are headed by children whose parents vanished in the fighting there, the report said.
As the rich nations of the world slog through an economic slowdown, the report predicted more families will have to put their children to work.
The largest numbers of child workers are found in Asia and the Pacific, where they make up about 60 percent of the world's child workforce. Children in Sub-Saharan Africa follow, accounting for 23 percent of this workforce.
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