The Labor Department announced Monday that $32.5 million in grants will go towards combating child labor around the world.
There are nearly 215 million children exploited in the work place and half of those children are working in hazardous conditions, according to the International Labour Organization.
Along with announcing the grants, the Department of Labor released three new reports on child and forced labor based on data from foreign governments, international and nongovernmental organizations and U.S. embassies.
Hilda L. Solis, Secretary of Labor, said the international community must work together to fight exploitation.
“It’s very important that we work collectively to help move this agenda but do it in partnership with businesses and the governments where we find there are issues and problems,” she said.
Since 1995 the Department of Labor has sponsored over 250 projects to remove children from exploitative labor in over 85 countries with funding of more than $740 million, according to Solis.
Solis said every child should have the option not to be forced to work.
“Every single child has a right to education and the right to have freedom from exploitation. And we all believe that they have God given potential,” she said.
Fifteen million dollars of the grant was given to World Vision, a Christian relief organization that works with children and families to overcome injustice, to provide services to children working in hazardous places of sugarcane production in the Philippines. Another $15 million went to the International Labour Organization for a Global Action Plan to be implemented to assist countries in changing their legislation and polices. The remaining $2.5 million went to the ILO to support the Labor Department’s research and identify the best methods to fight child labor.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he wanted the reports to be equal in stature to the State Department’s human rights report.
“I intended for this report to bring countries to the table that maybe need technical assistance or may be updating their national laws or putting together social safety nets for those trapped in the worst forms of child labor,” he said.