Most of us would be horrified to support a business that exploits children. But chances are you may have done just that on your last shopping trip. Perhaps you splurged on a handcrafted carpet, without knowing it was made by a seven-year-old from India, where children are chained to looms for 12 hours a day. Maybe you just bought a soccer ball for your son or daughter, without realizing your gift was produced by five-year-old hands inside a dark and silent factory in Pakistan. Even your more mundane purchases -- a leather bag, a shirt, a pair of jeans, or produce from the local grocery store --could be the product of child labor.

Around the world today, some 250 million boys and girls between the ages of five and 14 are exploited in hazardous work conditions, according to the International Labour Organization. Most of these children live in the developing world, but even in industrialized countries such as the United States, hundreds of thousands of underage boys and girls are at work in sweatshops, farm fields, brothels and on the street.

Children are born with fundamental freedoms and the inherent rights of all human beings. This is the basic premise of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human rights treaty that is transforming the lives of children and their families around the globe.

Child labour is one of the most serious forms of human rights violation. Children in the work force are a common sight in factories, plantations, the streets and with families in the fields. Children continue to be forced to work under exploitative conditions: low wages, long working hours, without medical or welfare facilities, proper meals or accommodation. They are deprived of basic rights such as education, proper growth and development.
There are at least 120 million children between 5 and 14 years old who are fully at work, and there are more than twice that many (250 million) for whom work is a secondary activity. More than 60 percent of these children are to be found in Asia. (ILO-IPEC, August 1997, p.1)
The ILO Convention 138, prohibits employment of children under the age of 15. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children must be protected from economic exploitation. Most Asian countries have laws that prohibit children from employment, but when it comes to enforcement, very little progress has been made.
The experience of NGOs working in the area of child labour since the early 1980s has been instrumental in the designing of policy and programmes to address the child labour problem at national and international levels. However, it has been recognised that the complexity of the child labour problem requires coordinated effort on the part of NGOs and others involved in this area.

People in every country and of every culture and every religion are working to ensure that each of the 2 billion children in the world enjoys the rights to survival, health and education; to a caring family environment, play and culture; to protection from exploitation and abuse of all kinds; and to have his or her voice heard and opinions taken into account on significant issues