For over a decade, child labour has been recognized as a key issue of human rights at work together with freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the abolition of forced labour, and non-discrimination in occupation and employment. Seventy-three million children ages ten to fourteen are working illegally in the world today. That makes up 11.2 percent of the population ages ten to fourteen.[1] This is the shocking details of how children are exploited in underdeveloped countries.
Cambodia was one of the undeveloped countries that facing the child labour's problem, over 313,000 children are trapped in the worst forms of exploitation such as drug trafficking and prostitution[2]. Most of them go to work because their family is extremely poor and they feel they need to help them get money, some of them get sold to a manufacture and they are forced into working. An ILO supported survey in 2003 reported one in every ten children in the capital above the age of seven was engaged in child domestic labour – working in the homes of others. In many cases families of child labourers want to send their children to school but they find it hard to survive when the money the child earns stops, especially if there is an emergency at home such as a new baby or a death in the family.
The Cambodian Government along with the ILO is working to identify and rehabilitate all the children scavenging with the objective of eliminating this worst form of child labour by the end of 2012. Labour often interferes with children’s education. Ensuring that all children go to school and that their education is of good quality are keys to preventing child labour.
[1]http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_childlabour.html
[2] http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Feature_stories/lang--en/WCMS_141489/index.htm
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