Access to Education, Family & Community Programs to Address Exploitive Child Labor
On December 15, 2010, the US DOL announced the award of $40 million in grants in 2010 to eliminate exploitive child labor in 12 countries. The grants will offer children access to educational and training alternatives, help improve the livelihoods of their households so their parents can meet basic needs without relying on child labor, and build local capacity to scale-up and sustain efforts to eliminate exploitive child labor.
The global campaign includes region-specific grants to fund projects that address exploitive child labor in sectors such as cocoa, quarrying and mining, shrimp and seafood, support the sharing of good practices, and focus on participatory strategies, economic empowerment, and promotion of social inclusion as a means to address the root causes of child labor. In addition to region-specific projects, the Department awarded $3.5 million for an international project focusing on child labor research and impact evaluation, implemented by ILO-IPEC and Understanding Children’s Work.
Since 1995, Congress has appropriated approximately $780 million to the Labor Department to support efforts to combat exploitive child labor internationally. As a result of that funding, the Department has rescued approximately 1.4 million children from exploitive child labor.