This Issue:

Table of Contents

Cover Story

Grades 4-6

Goal: Ending Child Labor

Carefully guiding a needle that's longer than his tiny fingers, a young boy stitches together the leather pieces of a soccer ball. He sits crouched in the corner of a hot, airless shed for 12 hours. For his long day's work, he will earn 60 cents.

The boy is one of more than 200 million children who work at hard, sometimes dangerous jobs all over the world. Child labor exists in two-thirds of the world's nations. From Indonesia to Guatemala, poor children as young as 6 are sent off to work. Often they are mistreated and punished for not working hard enough. Children mix the gunpowder for firecrackers in China and knot the threads for carpets in India--all for pennies a day. Sometimes they are sold as slaves.

In Pakistan, where 80% of the world's soccer balls are made, the situation is especially bad. There are 11 million to 12 million working children in that Asian country. At least half of them will die of starvation or disease before they reach their 12th birthday.

This month a campaign to stop child-labor abuse paid off. FIFA, the soccer world's governing organization, announced it was taking a stand. FIFA's seal of approval appears on soccer balls. The seal guarantees the balls are the correct weight and size. But from now on, the FIFA stamp will also guarantee the balls are made under proper working conditions. FIFA's decision, says U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, "is a major step in eliminating child labor from the soccer-ball industry."

Kids Helping Kids
Reich thanked the public for FIFA's decision. "You turned up the heat, and you got results," he said in a speech last week to the Child Labor Coalition, an organization that is trying to end the abuse of young workers. Reich also congratulated Craig Kielburger, 13, of Canada.

For the past year, Craig has traveled the world fighting for kids' rights. "I don't play a lot of soccer," says Craig, "but I have many friends who do. This change is important to them. It is just the beginning. But a strong beginning."

Craig believes kids can make a difference. He has this advice for TFK's readers: "Write letters to companies and government officials. Put pressure on leaders to make changes and to stop the misuse of children."

A U.S. Problem Too
The mistreatment of child workers is not just a foreign problem. Since colonial times, the U.S. has counted on children to lend a helping hand in its fields and factories. In the 1800s, children as young as 7 worked in textile mills for 12 hours a day. Bad behavior sent a child straight to the "whipping room" for punishment.

In 1938 a federal law was passed that set child-labor guidelines, limiting work hours for kids and requiring safe conditions. The law still exists, but it is sometimes ignored. For instance, close to 1 million kids in the U.S. work for farmers. From sunup to sundown, they harvest and haul. Many of these children are illegal immigrants. Other kids work near dangerous machinery or in other hazardous conditions.

One solution to the child-labor problem in poor countries is education. "The future of these countries," Secretary Reich told TFK, "depends on a work force that is educated. We are prepared to help build schools."

Education is helping to make the world a brighter place for 12-year-old Aghan of India. When he was 9, Aghan was kidnapped from his home and sold to a carpet maker. Aghan's boss was very cruel. "I was always crying for my mother," he recalls. Aghan's dream was to learn to write so that he could send letters to his parents. Earlier this year, Aghan was rescued from the factory by a group that opposes child labor. Today he is living in a shelter in New Delhi and is hard at work--learning to write.

Next: Found at Last: America's Cradle