I am a philanthropist and human rights activist who has made it his mission to help children around the world overcome poverty. The two main problems preventing children from reaching their full potential is child labour and the lack of formal education. I believe that eliminating child labour is one of the fundamental ways to tackle poverty and promote universal human rights. Child labour can range from factory work, mining, agriculture, military use of children and child prostitution. When children are denied an education and a normal childhood they are reduced to slavery. Some are denied the right to leave the workplace and are abducted and forced to work. I believe that child labour is a result of poverty and poverty is the result of the lack of children’s education because of their entrance into the workforce as children.
Child Labour
Particularly in third world countries, the hazardous conditions that children are employed in combined with the lack of education have created a cycle of poverty that is passed on from generation to generation. The International Labour Organization (ILO) based on estimates published in 2006 states that more than 200 million child labourers between five and seventeen years old are in the labour force. The number in hazardous work is estimated at 126 million with sixty-nine percent involved in agriculture and nine percent in industry. The Asian-Pacific region has the largest child labour force (122 million), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (49.3 million) and Latin America and the Caribbean (5.7 million). When children are forced to work long hours their ability to attend school or receive skills training is limited, preventing them from gaining education that could help lift them out of poverty in the future. Girls are particularly disadvantaged because they often must undertake household chores following work in the fields. For many children in developing countries it is common to work to help their families and they are expected to continue the family business at a young age. This trend is especially prevalent in the agriculture sector with children working long hours in the hot sun with very little or no time for breaks.
Education
The United Nations estimates that earning potential increases by as much as ten percent for every year of schooling. Basic literacy vastly improves a family's quality of life giving them the ability to find jobs, prevent diseases and protect their rights and dignity. The greatest gift that education provides is that it gives people pride in their ability to help themselves out of poverty and to become self reliant for the long term. Many countries are investing in literacy programs for their youth but are struggling to fund their programs. Kenya spends just over $30 per person on education, while China spends about $20 in contrast to Canada which spends nearly $1,500 per person on education. Without these essential funds the children have no choice but to work to support their families. This shows that governments and communities must work together to help solve this crisis.
The lack of healthy food, health care, and a stimulating environment lowers a child’s ability to learn for the rest of their lives. We see again and again that the cycle continues from a life of poverty, to a lack of resources for education, leading back to uneducated people unable to leave a life of poverty. The existence of widespread poverty in developing nations creates and perpetuates a mass denial of human rights. Poverty prevents nations from developing in many different ways with problems such as infant mortality, illiteracy, AIDS, overpopulation, child labour and other forms of exploitation becoming a common place.
Poverty is a denial of basic human rights, yet there are still six hundred and fifty million children surviving on less than one U.S dollar a day in the world. According to the U.N Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children are entitled to an education. The people living in the developed world have the resources and the opportunities to correct these injustices in the world. We live in a global community and the education of people everywhere benefits all people because there will be more minds working to solve the world’s problems. Education can lead the way out of poverty towards a more prosperous and stable society, so it is in the best interest of the developed world to do all they can to support education initiatives around the world.
The Developed and Developing World
At the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit, some significant steps were taken in the right direction when world leaders from rich and poor countries agreed to a set of 8 time-bound targets to end extreme worldwide poverty by 2015. The goals that were accepted to be reached were to end hunger, achieve universal education, form gender equity, increase child and maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, gain environmental sustainability, and to create a global partnership. This was an important step because it brought to light that developing nations must pledge to improve policies and governance so that the developed world can feel comfortable in their support with resources. This includes reducing corruption to ensure respect for human rights and to provide a greater voice for the poor. There is a need for increased funding in the agriculture industry in the developing world as the food crisis has given rise to increased demand and raised prices for food staples like corn. Having food security for the poor and investing in an industry that employs many of the poor will provide a solid stepping stone combined with an effort to reduce violent conflict within these nations through a tighter control on the arms trade. A safe and stable government is essential if developing nations are to attract investment and trade and thus decrease and eliminate poverty.
The poverty cycle can be broken but there is a need for outside intervention to help the people that need it the most. The more that governments and people pay attention to the problems occurring on the other side of the world the more we will be able to understand how they feel and how we can help.