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3 Organizations Working to End Child Labor

Organizations Working to End Child Labor
Around 160 million children around the world ages 5 to 17 are involved in child labor and more than 79 million of them are working in dangerous conditions that put their lives at major risk. Over the last four years, there has been an increase of 8.4 million children now engrossed in the act of child labor and that number is predicted to rise significantly even just for the year 2022. Despite this issue ascending, there is a multitude of organizations working to end child labor worldwide.

Child Labor and its Impact

Child labor is when someone exploits children into work that is dangerous and hazardous almost 50% of the time. This prevents them from having a normal childhood and leaves them unable to attend school. This issue is present in countries all over the world and sub-Saharan Africa has the most child laborers in the world with over 86.6 million, according to World Vision.

Poverty and poor schools are the two biggest causes of child labor in low-income countries. However, the problem is still prevalent in middle and high-income countries. “About 93.4 million children, 58.4% of child laborers, live in middle-income countries and 1.6 million child laborers live in high-income countries,” World Vision reported on its website.

Slavery, child trafficking, forced recruitment into armed conflict, prostitution and pornography, drug production and debt bondage are the worst forms of child labor, according to World Vision. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 22,000 children die each year at work due to unsafe environments. The most common form of child labor is agriculture work with more than 70% of laborers working in that field, World Vision reported.

One in three children in child labor is unable to receive an education due to how demanding their work schedule is, which is only going to continue the poverty and child labor cycle. According to UNICEF, there are 9 million additional children globally at risk of ending up in child labor by the end of 2022 as a result of the pandemic.” Luckily there are organizations working to end child labor, so hopefully, that number will not be as extreme.

The Global March Against Child Labour

The Global March Against Child Labour (Global March) is a global organization made-up of trade unions, teacher associations and civic organizations, with the purpose of ending child exploitation and trafficking, while focusing on providing quality education to all children. Global March began in 1998 when thousands of people, including world leaders came together to march against child labor in 103 countries to bring awareness to the problem.

The organization takes part in local, national, regional and global efforts in protecting and promoting the rights of children. Its goal is to change the system that compels children to have to work in the first place. Some of the issues it is addressing in order to improve children’s future: “the elimination of child labor, education for all and poverty alleviation.”

The organization has multiple programs in place as well as events aiding the end of child labor. It also has a current campaign called “Will you dance with us?,” which aims to show world leaders the importance of education and how many children in Africa (87 million) are working instead of going to school.

GoodWeave

GoodWeave, an organization that began in 1994, “is the leading global institution with a mission to stop child labor in global supply chains through a market-based holistic and authentic system.” Since 1994, the organization has rescued over 6,700 children from child labor and provided educational opportunities to over 26,000 children. It reached more than 75,000 workers in supply chains in 2018. In partnership with more than 350 organizations worldwide, GoodWeave aims to heal and educate exploited children and address the root causes of child labor.

There is “The GoodWeave Label,” which is a label on products that means no child labor went into the creation of that product. The purchase of products with this label shows support for programs trying to educate children and ensure adequate work for adults. “GoodWeave makes regular, unannounced inspections of all production facilities that cover tier-one factories and all outsourced production, including homes, to verify compliance with this Standard,” the organization said on its website.

Love146

Rob Morris founded Love146, a global organization, in 2002 with the mission of ending child trafficking and exploitation. The values Love146 operates under are “defiant hope, steady perseverance, deliberate collaboration, relentless advocacy, intentional thoughtfulness and unfiltered joy.” Services provided to positively outcome children include preventative education and supportive programming for financial independence, skills and resources.

There is a current project in the Philippines to provide holistic care to children in Love146’s care. The staff there created innovative ways to provide “education, recreation, health care and other services could be provided to children on-site,” according to its annual report.

Love146 reached more than 3,500 children through survivor care. It also reached more than 16,000 professionals, community members and caregivers to support Love146’s vision. Prevention and community education reached more than 63,000 children, thanks to Love146. “The trafficking and exploitation of children are one of the most severe human rights abuses imaginable,” Morris said on the organization’s website.

There are millions of children forced into labor each year and that number could only go up. By the end of this year, UNICEF predicts that 9 million children could go into child labor. This means they are most likely going to lose access to their education and have a poverty-based future, continuing the cycle between poverty and child labor. Child exploitation is an ongoing issue around the world, but these are just a few of the many organizations working to end child labor permanently around the world.

– Dylan Olive
Photo: Unsplash

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Top 5 Nonprofits Combatting Human Trafficking

Top Five Nonprofits Combatting Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is a problem that affects the entire world. In 2017, 100,409 victims of human trafficking were identified worldwide. That is a dramatic increase from 2012, the year that saw the total number of victims reach 46,570 people. However, there are several organizations in the United States and abroad that are working to end human trafficking. In the text below, top five nonprofits combating human trafficking are presented.

Top 5 Nonprofits Combatting Human Trafficking

  1. The Polaris Project began in 2002, with the objective of tracking and ending human trafficking. This program aims to achieve this goal through several objectives. One of the objectives is running National Human Trafficking Hotline that provides support for victims inside the United States. Recently, the Polaris Project began to expand its work beyond the United States. The organization partnered with Consejo Ciudadano organization and begun work in Mexico and Latin America. The partnership with Consejo Ciudadano allowed both projects to merge their hotlines to track victims being smuggled to the United to Mexico and vice versa. In 2016, the partnership helped 508 victims find support after being trafficked. Support included psychological evaluation and legal advice. Also, calling the hotline number provided crucial details that lead to the identification of 559 traffickers.
  2. A21, since 2008, works to end slavery and human trafficking across the world and wants to ensure that freedom is a right secured to every human. A21 has 14 offices across the world including the United States, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine. One of A21’s largest programs is the Walk for Freedom, which is a march that raises awareness of slavery and human trafficking. The march is also an opportunity for A21 to raise money to help its other causes like the Can You See Me campaign that aims to raise awareness of trafficking through social media. Last year, 400 marches took place in 50 countries. Seventy million people saw these marches either in person or through the media.
  3. Stop the Traffik, like other nonprofits combatting human trafficking, focuses on intelligence-led preventative measures that lead to disruption of human trafficking worldwide. The most important service that Stop the Traffik offers is the Stop App. This app can be downloaded by anyone in the world and is a place for victims of human trafficking to share their stories. The app allows victims to feel heard but also provides Stop the Traffik with valuable data. The information shared on the app allows Stop the Traffik to create hotspots and predict further activity in these areas. The data and findings are published online and are accessible to everyone. In August 2018, Stop the Traffik released a three-page report on child trafficking in Kenya that included the areas most affected by human trafficking, the most popular types of exploitation, the ways in which traffickers trick victims and how to spot the signs that someone is trafficked.
  4. Love146 fights to end child trafficking and exploitation through prevention and care for survivors. One of the many caring services that Love146 offers is the Round Home. The Round Home is a recovery house for girls who are victims of human trafficking. The goal of the house is to help girls renter society by helping them overcome trauma and realize their potential. The home is located in the Philippines and has several facilities including a volleyball court, a treehouse designated for therapy and a punching bag to help girls take out their aggression. While girls are staying at the house, Love146 helps locate the girls’ families to ensure they do not re-trafficked and that they can return to a stable living situation.
  5. Shared Hope’s goal is to bring an end to sex trafficking through prevention, justice and support. While Shared Hope focuses on human trafficking in the United States it also expanded its support programs to Nepal, India and Jamaica. In 2005, Shared Hope founded Asha Nepal, a Village of Hope that offers to house women who are victims of human trafficking. The village hosts 11 women and 15 children year round and offers counseling, HIV and STI treatment and vocational training. Like the Round House, the goal of Asha Nepal’s housing is to help victims of human trafficking re-enter the society with valuable skills so they do not get re-trafficked.

In recent years human trafficking increased worldwide. Despite these harsh facts, the nonprofit organizations like the Polaris Project, A21, Stop the Traffik, Love146 and Shared Hope are working hard to end it. These and many other organizations are fighting for a world where no will have to worry about being exploited for sex or labor.

– Drew Garbe

Photo: Flickr

 

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3 Anti-Trafficking Organizations

anti-trafficking organizations
Countless organizations around the world, big and small, conduct efforts to combat human trafficking in all of its forms. Here are three anti-trafficking organizations trying to make a difference and give hope to the millions of victims and survivors of this heinous transnational crime.

1) Anti-Slavery International

Based in the United Kingdom, Anti-Slavery International has been working to combat slavery since 1839 and this year is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Originally called the Anti-Slavery Society, it focused on emancipating slaves in the British colonies, Americas and the Caribbean in order to bring an end to the Transatlantic Slave trade.

Anti-Slavery International continues to combat modern slavery through advocacy, public outreach, education and its many campaigns. Some of its current campaigns include projects to combat trafficked labor in the Thai fishing industry, pass legislation that seeks to protect domestic workers around the world, end the chocolate industry’s role in child trafficking in the Ivory Coast and eradicate forced labor in the cotton industry of Uzbekistan.

Successes from its campaign activities include the passage of an International Labor Organization Convention on Domestic Labor, a European Union Human Trafficking Directive and the establishment of legislation criminalizing the use of forced labor as a form of trafficking in the U.K.

2) International Justice Mission

The main purpose of the International Justice Mission is to protect those in poverty from fear of violence which they are disproportionately subjected to due to a lack of legal protections throughout many justice systems in the developing world.

IJM works to protect the poor from violent people through partnerships with local authorities who help carry out four projects: rescuing victims, bringing criminals to justice, restoring survivors and strengthening justice systems. IJM’s method works as a three-phase program called Justice System Transformation.

The first phase focuses on the victims of trafficking: IJM works with local actors to rescue and restore victims of trafficking while at the same time bringing to justice those who perpetrate the crime. The second phase focuses on working with local actors to reform justice institutions so that they better address human trafficking and other forms of violent crime related to slavery. The third and final phase involves monitoring operations to support the continuation of just responses to slavery related crimes in countries with newly reformed justice systems.

3) Love146

The foundation of Love146 begins with a heart-wrenching story about the co-founders’ journey to Thailand and the child slavery they saw undercover in a brothel. The campaign is named after one particular girl they witnessed in the brothel, numbered 146, who refused to give up the fight against the crimes being committed against her.

Love146’s main focus is to combat the trafficking and exploitation of children. Their mission statement explains, “We believe in the power of Love and its ability to affect sustainable change. Love is the foundation of our motivation.” Their love and human compassion approach is composed of four interconnected programs.

The first program, which focuses on caring for survivors, involves the operation of safe houses in regions where child trafficking is prevalent within which victims can fully recover and reintegrate into society as healthy and prosperous adults.

The second program consists of prevention education programs which seek to educate children in at-risk areas about trafficking operations, how to spot traffickers and what to do to avoid being caught up in and how to report human trafficking rings.

The third program revolves around training professionals who frequently work with children, such as teachers, in learning how to spot trafficking victims, how to report these crimes and how to help victims who they may come into contact with.

The last program is an advocacy effort to empower those who fight against human trafficking through greater coordination and organization in order to more effectively combat the highly organized criminal trafficking network.

– Erin Sullivan

Sources: Love146 1, Love146 2, Love146 3, Love146 4, Love146 5, Love146 6, International Justice Mission 1, International Justice Mission 2, International Justice Mission 3, Anti-Slavery International 1, Anti-Slavery International 2, Anti-Slavery International 3, Anti-Slavery International 4
Photo: LoveGreater