The Edge of Disaster
© U.R. Romano courtesy of the Thomas J. Dodd Center, University of Connecticut
Over 25 years ago I began reporting on child labor and human trafficking for the United States Department of Labor at the request of President Bill Clinton who had made child labor and human rights a priority of his administration.
At the time, there were over 250 million children working instead of going to school, 80 million of these worked in the worst forms of child labor that violated their health, safety or basic human dignity, and one hundred million children were living on the streets in abject poverty.
Working with my filmmaking partner Robin Romano, we set out to document child labor in India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and Kenya, shooting video and film, images that would stay with me personally, children and families I remember to this day, an experience that would prove to change my personal and professional life for years to come.
Eventually the footage and stills would become the first global documentary on child labor ever produced, Stolen Childhoods. This early work also formed the foundation for the first report to Congress on international child labor sponsored by our Department of Labor... today those annual reports cover hundreds of products and commodities from over 100 countries. They track changes in the laws, programs and practices of nations committed to eliminate child labor and forced labor. The ILAB reports are important as a measure of progress in ending child labor. And there has been substantial progress.
© U.R. Romano, courtesy of the Thomas J. Dodd Center, University of Connecticut
The International Labor Organization, the UN agency charged with track efforts to end child economic exploitation, currently estimates child labor at 152 million children, 73 million of whom are working in hazardous child labor. There has been a slowing of progress, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where children working in forced labor in cocoa have actually increased in number.
All this news, a reduction of almost 100 million with over 60 million children in school for the first time in their lives occurred before COVID-19 created a global public health emergency that has had potentially catastrophic impacts on children.
The COVID pandemic has exposed and exacerbated pre-existing inequalities in our world, with some of the worst consequences focused on the world's poorest communities, women and girls, daily wage earners, refugees and people who migrate within their own countries, the homeless and people and other marginalized populations of child laborers, indigenous people, migrant laborers, victims of trafficking and slavery and those who struggle with a range of physical and mental disabilities.
The virus does not respect national boundaries nor does it discriminate on the basis of race or economic status but its impacts have directly affected larger numbers of the poor whose countries often lack the medical infrastructure to provide care.
90% of the world's school children are not in school – that's 370 million children no longer receiving even a basic ration of food, one meal a day they rely on. Families must now put their children to work to simply survive.
Currently, one in five children lives on less than $2 a day. The World Bank sees 40-60 million people pushed into poverty as a result of the pandemic.
© U.R. Romano, courtesy of the Thomas J. Dodd Center, University of Connecticut
The impacts on girls have been especially significant. A dramatic increase in early marriages is tied directly to girls losing their opportunity to attend school, increases in the trafficking of young children, child labor, forced labor, hunger and deprivation all will follow immediately unless the world community, led by The United States, takes action to support and protect the lives of children at home and around the world.
As I write this, the United States and the policy makers around the world have already allocated over ten trillion dollars in COVID relief funds for their own citizens. However, a rising majority of people realize that more must be done to protect the 80% of the world that don't have the funds needed for medical care, food, PPE, clean water, access to schools and basic human rights.
Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, along with other laureates and leaders from around the world, has called on the world's most prosperous economies to commit 20% of all their pandemic funding to help the world's most disadvantaged.
How would that money be spent? What are the priorities and steps we should take at home and around the world to end child labor and counter the impacts of the pandemic?
Media Voices will present two agendas over the next month, one domestic and one international, that outline a way forward to help children, families and communities survive and rebound from the pandemic.
2021 has been declared as the UN Year for the Elimination of Child Labor. Clearly that is not going to happen. But what can happen is that we can redouble and focus our efforts to save children's lives. We may be at the edge of disaster but there is still time to act and make a difference.