classes last only two hours a day instead of six . What ’ s the point for my son to go there ?”
In addition to poverty , war and natural disaster also drive “ children out of school and into dangerous work ,” the U . S . Department of Labor ’ s Bureau of International Labor Affairs reported .
Schools are damaged during fighting , or destroyed by floods and landslides . Militants attack or destroy schools . Teachers flee . Schools are used to house refugees from other areas . Local and national economies are devastated . Parents and other family members are killed .
Yet quantifying child labor remains difficult . Kids go in and out of the labor market . Afghanistan and Pakistan are both fast-growing countries with no censuses and few birth records . “ It follows that the annual incidence of spells of household child labor is often greater than would be apparent from survey data ,” the UN reported .
It ’ s also hard to monitor . People tend not
to report illegal activity ; in some cases , the practice has deliberately gone “ underground .”
For example , after international outcry over children hand-stitching soccer balls in Sialkot , Pakistan , “ the whole industry has moved into private homes , which has made it a bit difficult to monitor if child labor is being used ,” Hussain Naqi , the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan ’ s national coordinator told Reuters . It is commonly accepted that “ this is not just an issue in Sialkot , child labor is occurring all across Pakistan .”
Yet the Pakistan government does not take it all that seriously , child advocates say .
“ The government of Pakistan does not collect data on the number of criminal investigations , prosecutions , children assisted or convictions of child traffickers and those using children in other exploitative forms of labor ,” according to the DOL . This lack of data “ hampers the government ’ s ability to assess the prevalence of child labor and to develop policies or plans for future child-labor initiatives .”
The “ worst forms ” of child labor are the hardest to quantify . The 1990 ILO Convention puts armed conflict , prostitution , and drug trafficking in this category .
Who are they ? “ Children trapped in the worst forms of child labor … are often drawn from social groups facing the most deeply entrenched disadvantages ,” according to the UN . “ Living in informal urban settlements , on the streets of major cities , or in remote , highly marginalized rural areas , they are poorly served by public education systems .”
International law requires children in these situations be immediately removed and provided social services . But given that they are often trafficked for sexual exploitation or cheap labor , many of these children slip under the radar .
Even if there were reliable numbers , Brown wrote , “ Statistics alone can never capture the suffering , the fear and the loss of human potential that comes with child labor . … They do not measure the exhaustion of children forced to work long hours or lift heavy loads . They do not monitor the fear of chil-
A young Wakhi boy uses a pick to dig fodder for his family ’ s livestock on the mountain above his family ’ s home in Afghanistan ’ s Wakhan Corridor .
14 | Journey of Hope C E N T R A L A S I A I N S T I T U T E