Building Bridges for Children's Rights Home

Henry Adams observed that “a teacher affects eternity.” Teachers are one of society’s most valuable resources and are important catalysts for social transformation. They have played important roles in addressing social justice issues throughout history. Today, teachers continue to lead the way in this tradition to address one of the most critical global issues of our time, that of exploitative and abuse forms of child labor.

Around the world, an estimated 246 million children ages 5-17, are engaged in child labor. The majority of them work in conditions considered illegal, hazardous, or extremely exploitative. Children can be found working in all sorts of jobs, including agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, mining, domestic service, forced prostitution, and illicit activities. Child labor is one of today’s most challenging human rights problems. The eradication of this human rights violation cannot be done without the involvement of teachers and the children themselves. For the past decade, children all over the world have proven that they can make a difference.

In 1998-1999, children across the globe participated in the Global March Against Child Labor and ultimately, through critical mass, inspired delegates to the International Labor Conference to adopt the ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. In May 2002, children participated in the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children and spoke eloquently of the need to address war, poverty, health care, and the environment. In May 2004, the World Congress on Child Labor was held and the world witnessed the largest gathering of children from over 50 countries to contribute to the global effort to fight against child labor.

Children’s participation and their voices have contributed to the international political processes.

The goal of this training program is to enable teachers to not only gain knowledge about one of the most important global issues of our time, but to explore teaching strategies to inspire their students to contribute to this international process. Teachers will participate in this day-long workshop with Chivy Sok, human rights educator and activist from the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights, to explore solutions and to contribute to the global effort to eradicate the worst forms of child labor.