Approximately 218 million children around the world are engaged in some form of child labor. Through CARE’s official Organizational Policy Regarding Working Children and Hazardous Child Labor, CARE demonstrates our unparalleled commitment to fight exploitative child labor. CARE works with local communities to eradicate the worst forms of this labor and promote the right of every child to quality education. Our strategic approach to child labor focuses on four overarching objectives:
Addressing public policies and policy reform at the local, national, regional and international level;
- Building public sentiment through advocacy on the abuses of child labor and on the denial of the basic human rights afforded to children;
- Promoting economic alternatives to the worst forms of child labor for families and children;
- Enhancing the quality and relevancy of formal and nonformal educational programs; and
- Increasing the capacity of our partners at all levels.
By including skills development from the onset of project interventions, CARE aims to provide sustainable solutions and ensure that children do not re-enter the labor market.
CARE sees the intersection of education and child labor eradication as a crucial juncture in reducing the cycle of poverty. Formal and nonformal education of not only children, but also parents and community leaders, are critical factors in ensuring a lasting commitment to ending child labor.
CARE believes that addressing child labor prevention and the reintegration of child laborers is most effective within the context of local communities. Our programs in child labor are designed for the local context, but build upon the strategic approach outlined above. By sharing successful project interventions across communities and the organization, CARE is able to refine our approach, developing innovative programs to meet the evolving needs of child laborers and those at risk.
Program Highlights
CARE’s newly implemented Organizational Policy Regarding Working Children and Hazardous Child Labor, one of the first of its kind, cements CARE’s long standing commitment to the fight against child labor. To date, CARE has helped over 20,000 children directly through interventions in Mali, Togo, Bolivia and Central America. Targeted interventions also exist in Ghana, Benin, Ecuador and Cambodia.
In West Africa, CARE focuses on aiding children at risk of being trafficked and on the subsequent reintegrating efforts. The West African countries in which CARE works are linked by centuries-old labor migration routes. These routes are proven breeding grounds for the exploitation of children trafficked to cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast and Ghana from neighboring countries.
CARE also makes a special effort to target the trafficking of girls from rural areas to urban centers where they often end up in prostitution and/or child domestic servitude. In August 2005, CARE’s project aided the government of Togo in developing and adopting a new anti-trafficking law aiming. In addition, nine African countries, including Ghana, Togo and Benin, signed a multilateral agreement to prevent, protect and reintegrate child victims of trafficking.
In Cambodia, CARE is working in partnership on the OPTIONS Project to reduce the number of children, especially girls, who fall victim to trafficking and to commercial sexual exploitation. OPTIONS educates children who are at risk of trafficking in programs relevant to their needs.
In Latin America, projects focus primarily on specific economic sectors and policy reform. In Bolivia, CARE’s goal is to eradicate child labor in mining activities, to improve education services so that children complete primary school and to provide opportunities for training in nonmining occupations. In Ecuador, CARE is working to improve access to quality education. The program focuses on assisting children involved in the banana and cut flower industries. Finally, CARE is implementing a regional program translating the right to education of child laborers into policies, program and practices at the local, national and regional level in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
Did You Know?
The International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 182 calls for all member states to eliminate the worst forms of child labor, including children engaged in prostitution or pornography; debt bondage; trafficked or forced into armed conflict; production and trafficking of drugs; and work that harms the health, safety and morals of the child.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recognizes education as a right for all children. CARE supports the aims of the CRC, promoting the Education for All initiative and working towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
