Essay: “We miners die a lot.” Appalling conditions and poverty wages – the lives of cobalt miners in the DRC

In an in-depth essay, scholar ROY MACONACHIE, in an article first published on The Conversation, reports on the plight of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt miners…
Essay: US states are weakening their child labour restrictions nearly eight decades after the US Government took kids out of the workforce

US scholars of child labour, JOHN A FLITER and BETSY WOOD, canvas – in an article first published on The Conversation – what they say are efforts to weaken child labour laws…
Essay: Many global corporations will soon have to police up and down their supply chains as EU human rights “due diligence” law nears enactment

RACHEL CHAMBER and DAVID BIRCHALL, in an article first published on The Conversation, look at what the new law means…
Essay: Canada’s Modern Slavery Act is the start – not the end – of efforts to address the issue in supply chains

In an article first published on The Conversation, KAM PHUNG and GENEVIEVE LEBARON say the enactment of what many are calling Canada’s Modern Slavery Act is an important milestone, yet it should only be viewed as the beginning of efforts to address modern slavery in supply chains…
Contemporary slavery extensive around globe – UN investigator

United Nations AP A UN investigator says contemporary forms of slavery are widely practiced around the world, including forced labour for China’s Uyghur minority, bonded labour for the lowest caste Dalits in South Asia, and domestic servitude in Gulf countries, Brazil and Colombia. Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata adds that traditional enslavement, especially […]
Swapping school for hard labour: Climate disasters drive Bangladesh children from classrooms to work

MOSABBER HOSSAIN, of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports that a growing flood of Bangladeshi children are seeing their education end permanently as they flee climate impacts for urban slums…
“Children should be playing”: Pope pleads for fight against child labour

Vatican City Reuters Pope Francis on Wednesday urged governments to combat child labour, saying it was terrible that children who should be playing are instead working as adults or scavenging in garbage dumps for something to sell. Speaking at his weekly general audience Francis also lamented that in many countries people were being exploited in […]
“Huge setbacks”: In the year to end child labour, COVID wreaks havoc

EMELINE WUILBERCQ, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how the coronavirus pandemic impacted the fight against child labour…
World’s children bearing brunt of COVID pandemic, Vatican studies say

Vatican City Reuters The world’s children are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, with marked increases in violence, abuse, child labour, lost schooling, and malnutrition, two Vatican studies said on Wednesday. The studies, based on academic, scientific, United Nations data and other source material, were produced by the Vatican’s development office and the Pontifical […]
The Long Read: The children who run away to work – Ethiopia’s hidden weavers

EMELINE WUILBERCQ and YARED TSEGAYE, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, report on the ongoing issue of child labour in Ethiopia’s weaving industry…