Edmund Rice Justice Bulletin

Whilst millions around the globe enjoy the spectacle of the World Cup, few will give a thought to the thousands of children who are robbed of their childhood by being employed to stitch the footballs that may be used for such sporting events.

These children are part of the focus of the Global March Against Child Labour campaign which aims to mobilize worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of children especially the right to receive a free, meaningful education and to be free from economic exploitation.

In a world where 115 million children do not attend primary school and 133 million cannot read or write, one of the Millenium Development Goals aims to achieve universal primary education by 2015.

For that goal to be reached the problem of child labour needs to be addressed an issue highlighted in latest edition of Ozspirit

"250 million of the world's 2 billion children don't have time to have a childhood. They have to work. They work because they can move their family from hunger to survival. Their parents are often unemployed and desperate for a decent job but the children are offered the jobs because they are a cheap and easily exploited source of labour. Education is often too expensive and under-resourced, forcing children and their parents to choose between education and work."

The issue is not just one that affects the developing world. A recent article published in the Daily Telegraph in the UK states that”Children as young as six are being brought to Britain in their hundreds every year to be used as "slave labour" in sweatshops, private homes and cannabis factories. The children are transported from all over Africa, Asia and eastern Europe by ruthless and highly organized gangs of traffickers.”