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FIX THE WORLD
Help Stop Child Labor


Indian children work in a stone quarry near Dhubri, India. Many children who work in this region earn less than 50 cents for 10 hours of hard work.
About 250 million children between ages 5 and 14 work. About half of all child laborers work full-time. Many kids work in hard and often dangerous jobs. They do not go to school. Experts agree there is a lot kids can do to help child laborers everywhere. Here are a few tips:

  • Write letters. Use TFK's Congress Connection to contact your local Congressional Representative or U.S. Senator.
    • Pressure lawmakers to be forceful supporters of the United Nations ban on harmful child labor.
    • Ask leaders to support paying for basic primary education (kindergarten through grade 8) for all the world's children. The Millennium Development Goals is a plan that outlines how all children can have access to an education.
    • Urge your representatives to support changes to U.S. law that would protect child farm workers equally with other working children. (U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, and Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, a Democrat from California, have both worked on child labor issues.)
    • Ask representatives to restore funding to programs that help migrant families in the U.S.

  • Identify groups that are working to end child labor and find out how you can help these groups. Learn about these groups by visiting their websites:
  • Look for products that have been made without the use of child labor. Fair Trade is a movement to pay the producers of products a fair amount of money for those products so that they can afford to send their children to school. Many products, such as coffee and cocoa, are produced with the Fair Trade seal. Visit the Global Exchange website to learn more about Fair Trade. Look for products that have been certified child labor free.

  • Rugmark is another organization working to end child labor. Rugmark offers educational opportunities for children in India, Nepal and Pakistan. Look for the Rugmark seal on carpets to be sure the carpet or rug was made without illegal child labor. Learn more at the Rugmark website.

  • Learn about child labor so you can help educate others. Look to the resources above to gather the information you need to inform friends, relatives and classmates about child labor.