Expand Your Knowledge

Teaching Materials

“Lost Futures: The Problem of Child Labor” is a video and teachers' guide designed by the AFT to introduce students of all ages to issues surrounding child labor. It can be ordered through the AFT's international affairs department for $10 (includes shipping and handling).

In Our Own Backyard is supplemented by a DVD and poster designed to enhance classroom instruction about child labor.

"Why Should Ending Child Labor Be a Priority?" To learn more about why the AFT considers ending child labor a priority, please view our factsheet.

Media Voices for Children, an online media advocate for children’s rights, provides downloadable videos and documents to enhance study of child labor.

The Child Labor Public Education Project, sponsored by the Labor Center and Child Labor Research Initiative at the University of Iowa, contains workshop materials for lessons about child labor.

The plentiful resources at the American Labor Studies Center allow social studies teachers to incorporate social and labor history into their classes.

The Library of Congress has developed a helpful set of lesson plans about child labor.

Youth Advocate Program International offers curriculum modules regarding the most important children's rights issues facing the world today.

Educators developing lessons on child labor may also want to explore the Voices of Youth Web site, produced by UNICEF.

For more information about the history of child labor in the United States, please visit Between a Rock and a Hard Place, the Smithsonian Institution's online exhibit about sweatshops in the United States.

The International Labor Rights Fund has produced a series of colorful, educational posters about child labor.

Training manual to fight trafficking in children for labour, sexual and other forms of exploitation—Facilitators' Guide (Available in English, Spanish and French.)

The Safe Work for Youth kit is designed for those who work with or on behalf of older children: program planners, project managers, vocational training institutions, workers’ representatives and partner agencies.

The PeaceWaves Kids Guernica project engages young people in educational activities leading to the creation of giant canvases on issues related to peace. Child labor has become a central issue within the framework of the IPEC PeaceWaves partnership, and a series of canvases have been created on this theme.

The entire SCREAM series (kit included)—Supporting Children’s Rights through Education, the Arts and the Media.

Children’s poems on child labor.  A collection of poems written by children from around the world on child labor.

Free The Children is a program started by youth to help other youth around the world.

 

Organizations

International Organizations

The Web site of the Child Labor Coalition provides extensive information about child labor in the United States and around the world, including information regarding pending legislation and current campaigns.

The AFT is an active participant in the comprehensive campaign against child labor led by Education International, which represents nearly 30 million education professionals around the world.

The AFT also works with the Global Campaign for Education, a civil society movement that strives for universal access to education, to eradicate child labor.

The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), run by the International Labour Organization (ILO), publishes data pertaining to child labor and the international laws and standards that govern it.

The International Labor Rights Fund Web site has numerous resources about campaigns to end child labor.

The Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch monitors human rights abuses against children around the world and works to end them.

Domestic Organizations

The Children in the Fields campaign, organized by the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP), strives to improve the quality of life of migrant and seasonal farmworkers' children by advocating for enhanced educational opportunities and the elimination of discriminatory federal child labor laws in agriculture.

Farmworker Justice is a nonprofit organization that seeks to empower migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States through litigation, administrative and legislative advocacy, training and technical assistance, coalition building, public education and support for union organizing.

For the U. S. Department of Labor's official position on child labor, please visit the department's Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT) Web Site.

 

Resources

International Resources

To learn more about why the AFT considers ending child labor a priority, please view our factsheet, “Why should ending child labor be a priority?”

The Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs published a “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor” (2009)

The International Center on Child Labor and Education publishes excellent general newsletters and youth newsletters on children's rights.

On June 17, 1999, the International Labour Organization ratified Convention 182: Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour.

The United Nations expresses its positions on child labor and education in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

On June 26, 1973, the ILO ratified Convention 138: Concerning the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment.

Domestic Resources

“Ending Child Labor through Education—What Teachers and Unions Can Do,” a poster and brochure combination produced by the AFT, describes why education is essential in the fight to end child labor and how teachers and trade unionists can contribute to the struggle.

In Our Own Backyard is an AFT resource that explores the child labor problem in the United States and potential solutions to it.

Congress is currently considering a bill, the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE Act), that would change the Fair Labor Standards Act to make laws governing agricultural child workers as protective as for nonagricultural workers.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) is the framework for child labor laws in the United States. Exemptions in this act are what make standards governing child labor in agriculture different from other occupations.