Within and Beyond Our Borders: Collective action to address child labor

An estimated 160 million children are engaged in child labor globally, harvesting cocoa for the chocolate we eat and cotton for the clothes we wear; and mining critical minerals for the technology we use. Some 79 million of these children are engaged in hazardous child labor, risking injury or even death from using sharp tools and dangerous chemicals or working underground, for example. An additional 3.3 million children are engaged in forced labor, with nearly half in commercial sexual exploitation. Every country, including the United States, faces this global issue. To meet this challenge, we must all continue to address exploitative child labor as a global community.

To commemorate this year’s World Day Against Child Labor, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs and the Wage and Hour Division invite you to join us to discuss child labor and decent work in the U.S. and abroad and the power of different actors—from teachers, workers, and survivors, to businesses, governments, and civil society—working together to eradicate this egregious form of labor exploitation.