218 million children work as slaves worldwide

IN MEXICO, Pope Francis said: “God will call to account the slavers of our day, and we must do everything possible so that these situations do not occur more”.

218 million kids around the globe work as slaves. Half of them perform risky tasks and more than eight million work as prisoners. It is an outrage against human rights.

Alejandro Sanz endorsed the sentence: “Together we can”. 

Those who have agreed with him include the musician Bob Geldof; the actor Imanol Arias; the Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunusand the Economy Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz together with varied cast of famous actors and thinkers who express their repudiation of child labour in Latin America, defending the social action “Proniño” which aims to eliminate child slavery and support the social integration of children.

Imanol Arias also said: “Supporting a child costs €140 per year, €12 euro per month and 40 cents per day. Half the price of a coffee”. “When a woman starts to make money,” recounts Mohammad Yunus, “the first thing she does is bring it back home to her children, whom she had lent to work in exchange for food.” Bob Geldof also stated that: “The problem is not child labour, but excess of poverty”.

Moreover, to relieve the victims of slavery, an event was held that featured African and Caribbean stars. Tyranny remains a universal affliction. According to the reports of the International Labour Organization, 12.3 million people tolerate any form of slavery.

More worrying is the situation of the children. Save the Children says that 218 million kids from 5 to 17 years old work in the world, of which 126 million in “very dangerous” and 8.5 million in “demeaning” circumstances described as “slavery” tasks. Child trafficking is due to many reasons: carnal exploitation, i.e., prostitution, lewdness or compulsory marriage, illegal adoption, use of children for begging, for scams, to perform forced labour and for organ removal. Trafficking of children has turned into the world’s third criminal business after speculation with drugs and arms trafficking.

Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a distinguished career in Spain in the fields of advertising and public relations. He is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing. For additional information visit clementeferrer@clementeferrer.com

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Comments


    • Ian Thomas

      23 March 2016 • 19:44

      .I wonder if the Pope was also talking about the child slaves serving paedophile RC priests????

    • Mike in ESP

      23 March 2016 • 21:40

      Funny how we in the western world condone child labour and cheap labour but are the first to buy products manufactured under those circumstances but turn a blind eye when it suits.

      I remember visiting Morocco and going to a ceramic works, I could see that many children where the ones that where doing the work including painting the ceramics yet I noticed they all had smiles on their faces so they where not being forced to do something they didn’t want to do!

      I know people work in other countries for next to nothing but then living in those countries costs next to nothing so where would the problem be if those people are prepared to work for what they are paid?

      Yes there are situations in places in the world where children are forced to work or people are forced to work for very little but I think we in the west tend to over criticise on this. I have listened to “so called” intelligent people tell me “oh when you look at them, they have to live in mud huts”, when you tell them that is how they lived in their country “Africa” they still say “but its not right”… what I think is not right is us interfering and criticising the way things are done in other countries when we haven’t got a clue, if we kept our noses out of a lot of things in other countries people there might have better lives. Everywhere we stick our nose, gets f***** up… then comes the taxes, the laws, the bureaucracy and the smiles start to disappear, we need to learn to keep our noses out.

      Just my 2 cents 😉

    • John Peters

      24 March 2016 • 04:34

      if you pay tax then you are a slave

    • Man Brown

      24 March 2016 • 16:02

      Did the pope mention anything about god bringing to account all the child molesting catholic priests?

    Comments are closed.