158 Million Child Slaves

158 Million Child Slaves

(ANS – Madrid – June 12) – They can’t go to school, they barely have time to eat, they don’t rest even on weekends, and they don’t know what it’s like to play with other children. This is the life that 158 million children around the world lead, victims of child labor who should, instead, be at school and in the playground rather than employed doing adult activities. Without considering that, in almost half of the cases (73 million) they are engaged in activities dangerous to their health. Pope Francis, recalling the World Day against the Exploitation of Child Labor, writes: “Children must be able to play, study, and grow up in a peaceful environment. Woe to those who suffocate in them the joyful impulse of hope!”

Loading goods at stations, selling them on the road, working in fields, factories, even mines, or as servants – these are some of the occupations that minors carry out in the world and that deprive them of going to school and enjoying childhood. The question for a child should never be: “What are you doing: studying or working?”

Child labor concerns mainly agriculture (71%); 17% of child laborers are engaged in the service sector, and 12% in the industrial sector, particularly in the mining industry.

Salesians all over the world work to redeem these children from child labor: so that they can recover their childhood, go to school, play with friends, learn something that serves their lives; so that they can feel loved and appreciated; so that they may know God and feel loved by a loving Father, as befits children.

Children are always cheap labor, easily replaceable; they don’t complain nor claim their rights, simply because they don’t know them. They’re treated like adults, and so they tire and get sick easily. They carry heavy loads, work the land assuming postures that generate malformations and chronic diseases and, in all cases, develop low self-esteem, distrust in people, and even forms of depression.

The Salesians and all the institutions that follow Don Bosco’s thoughts will never get tired of asking for the respect of children’s rights and of putting in place adequate measures so that children be protected and feel safe. Education is and remains the key so that children aren’t exploited, can transform their lives, be agents of change and development, and be protagonists of their own rightful future.