Homeland Crisis

Get the facts on the plight of India's child laborers, then find out how you can help them

Activist Kailash Satyarthi attends an education rally in New Delhi. Through his organization, the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, he has rescued thousands of Indian children from lives of slave labor.

Millions of children in India and around the globe go to work instead of school each day. According to the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, India has the largest number of child laborers in the world with estimates ranging from 60 to 115 million.

A Losing Battle for Kids
Many of India's kids are often forced to work if their parents or other relatives can't find jobs. Working on farms sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or sweating away in hot stone quarries, they endure dangerous tasks that offer little pay. Many of them have been working since the age of six or seven, and more than half of them will never learn how to read. By the time they reach adulthood they may be hopelessly sick or deformed.

The World Takes Notice
These issues in India and other poor nations have made child labor the most widespread abuse of children in the world. In an economy where countries increasingly depend on other countries, however, there has been growing concern about fair work standards.

In countries such as India, UNICEF supports programs that make education a top priority for kids. Its strategies in other countries include providing children with job skills and offering loans to poor families. UNICEF representatives also try to persuade companies to pledge that they will not hire children under conditions that violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This international human rights treaty protects children's rights by setting standards in health care, education and legal, civil and social services. It has been approved by 191 countries since 1989.

How You Can Help
You can visit UNICEF's official website to find out how you can join the fight against child labor around the world.

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