Imagine being a young eight year old, mindlessly playing with your toys, eagerly reading stories, coloring and drawing on just about every surface. But in the place of your toys, there is a thick gust of musty smoke. In the place of stories, machines twice your size. And instead of doodling, you are working in a construction site in the center of a war-stricken land.

Yet for many eight year old's, there is no need to envision such a world, since for them it is a daily reality: child labor.

168 million children are victims of child labor, with more than half aged between 5 and 17 years working in the “worst forms of child labor,” a phrase used by the International Labour Organization to characterize the hazardous, life-threatening nature of the work involved.

Child labor is the employment of children which results in a deprivation of their livelihoods, education and dignity, and damage to their physical and mental health. This malpractice exploits children’s labor and physical services on the expense of their health and mental, moral and social development.

Contrary to what some may expect, 100 million of the 168 million children exploited by child labor globally are young boys. These children are predominantly exploited in the agricultural, fishing, hunting and forestry industries, fields which use more than 60% of all child laborers. Many of these children work an average of 32.2 hours per week as unpaid family workers.

Children who are orphaned, at conflict with the law, experience violence at home or have a disability are at greater risk of being affected by child labor than their counterparts who do not have such experiences. Times of conflict and war make children even more vulnerable to child labor. The reasons for the proliferation of child labor in regions undergoing conflict are twofold. Adult refugees often times face difficulty in finding employment in the formal labor market because it is nearly impossible to obtain a work permit in their host countries. Additionally, the tumultuous environment naturally lends itself towards victimization as it increases the instability of family structure, heightens financial and economic insecurities, amplifies pre-existing poverty and decreases the availability of civic services; these conditions increase the vulnerability of women and children to fall subject to human trafficking, sexual violence, early marriage and all too common, child labor.

More extreme conditions, such as separation from families and exposure to hazardous machinery and substances, can characterize the “work” environment for the young lives trapped in child labor. Children who work under the “worst forms of child labor” are exposed to dangerous chemical pesticides and are required to work with foreign machinery and sharp tool without formalized training or prior experience. Nearly 200,000 children are forced to work on cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast with abrasive chemical substances. Young children gather the cocoa used to make chocolate by cutting the pods off trees using machetes. Children working in the Congo cobalt mines sift through stones and dig tunnels by hand, only drinking water which comes from the mining site source after the minerals have been washed. Many children unjustly face the risk of death from explosions and rock falls in the mines. Other health risks inflicted on these children include heavy loads in construction industries, lead and mercury poisoning in the mines, inhalation of carcinogenic solvents and dyes, exposure to radiation in nuclear plants, nicotine poisoning and pesticide exposure. As one might expect, these hazardous health threats carry profound effects on these children’s health development and livelihoods. 22,000 children die every year due to accidents in these dangerous surroundings and conditions. Almost 3 million healthy years worth of these children’s lives are lost every year.

The ongoing presence of child labor in our modern world is incredibly alarming and demands our attention and wholehearted efforts, for child labor threatens the very health and livelihood of every child involved. It impedes their continued primary and higher educations and strips them of the freedoms with which they should be able to lead their lives.

June 12 is the World Day Against Child Labor, an annual commemoration of our dedication to end this scourge against humanity for the sake of generations of children yet unborn. This June 12 reminds us that no human, no child should be up for sale. Human dignity is on the line.