Bereket, a youth in Ethiopia, with a microscope he created, thanks to support from a U.S. government grant to return to school.
As a teenager, I worked a lot of odd jobs. I was a paper boy, I bagged groceries, I sold tickets at the local movie theater, and I even cleaned toilets in a nursing home. These weren’t glamorous jobs. They were merely a means to an end: making money for college. Miraculously – and with the help of scholarships and loans – I made it to college and got the boost I needed to launch me toward my corporate career.
The right kind of hard work can be good for a young person. But there are plenty of instances where hard work is harmful. That’s what we call hazardous child labor, and it traps 85 million children globally in dangerous, dirty, and degrading labor that jeopardizes their physical, mental, or moral well-being — and prevents them from attending school. It’s a big problem, but one we’re fighting hard and can win.
Often boys and girls have to work because the adults in their lives hit one of poverty’s many dead ends: they can’t work, can’t earn enough, or they just aren’t around. This was true of Bereket, a boy in southern Ethiopia. His father died when he was 2. His mother remarried a few years later, leaving Bereket with his grandmother, who survived by collecting and selling firewood. The 5-year-old went to school in the morning and helped his grandma work in the afternoon. But when the grandmother fell sick several years later, Bereket had no choice. He dropped out of his fifth-grade class to focus on … firewood.
As a father of five children – who all went to college and now pursue careers – it pains me to hear about children like Bereket. It isn’t fair; it isn’t right; and it isn’t what God wants for a child.
Jesus commanded, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Mark 10:14). Any Christian parent would also believe that children are special to Jesus’ plan, in John 10:10, to “have life, and have it to the full.”
You will be encouraged to know that our government cares about children, too. The United States has been a leader in the effort to eliminate child labor through the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB) at the Department of Labor. Since 1995, ILAB has worked with partners like my organization, World Vision, to withdraw nearly 2 million children from harmful labor. They do this through programs that increase awareness about the impact of child labor, improve access to education, and develop economic opportunities for families.
World Vision operates ILAB-funded programs in Honduras, Mexico, and Ethiopia. And here’s where Bereket’s story takes a turn for the better. When World Vision learned that he’d dropped out of school, they included him in Ethiopians Fighting Against Child Exploitation, a project that helped over 20,000 children across the country. He and his grandmother were able to access food assistance, eliminating his need to work, and he received everything he needed to get back to class. “The sky was my limit,” Bereket said when he heard the news.
Today, 16-year-old Bereket is an eager student in World Vision’s innovation classes. He loves to recreate things he’s seen, such as a ventilator, refrigerator, grinding machine, and microscope. In fact, he can’t stop innovating, only limited by the materials to needs to make his jerry-rigged inventions.
Bereket is one success story among millions, thanks to ILAB’s commitment to protecting children around the world and organizations that come alongside. But many more children need help to leave hazardous child labor.
Today, on World Day Against Child Labor, you need to know that ILAB funding is not secure. The Administration’s budget proposes eliminating this important program. Congress must act to keep the protection of the world’s children at the center of tough budget discussions.
Sadly, the world’s exploited children are far from the spotlight in Washington right now. But I choose to hope that the good people of Congress – many of them parents who want children to become all that God intends – will come through to support ILAB’s proven track record in fighting hazardous child labor.
Because when children become innovators instead of laborers, their countries and our world will be better for it.
Richard Stearns is president of World Vision U.S. and author of The Hole in Our Gospel and Unfinished. Follow him on twitter.com/RichStearns.