Description: The International Labor Organization estimated in 2000 that, of the approximately 246 million children engaged in labor worldwide, 171 million were working in situations harmful to their development. Child Labor and Human Rights provides a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon of child labor from a human rights perspective.

The authors consider the connections between human rights and abusive child labor, the pros and cons of a rights-based approach to the problem, and specific strategies for effecting change. They make an indispensable contribution to the growing effort to abolish abusive and exploitive child labor practices.

Contents: Part 1: Clarifying the Problem • Rethinking Child Labor: A Multidimensional Human Rights Problem • Defining Child Labor as if Human Rights Really Matter • Child Labor and the Rights of Children: Historical Patterns of Decline and Persistence • Part 2: The Standards-Based Response of the World Community • Child Labor Standards: From Treaties to Labels • Translating Standards into Practice: Confronting Transational Barriers • Translating Standards into Practice: Confronting Local Barriers • Part 3: Case Studies • Combating Child Labor in Tanzania: A Beginning • Combating Child Labor in the Philippines: Listening to Children • Combating Child Labor in Brazil: Social Movements in Action • Part 4: Toward Progressive Change • Abolishing Child Labor: A Multifaceted Human Rights Solution • Conceiving Child Labor in Human Rights Terms: Can It Mobilize Progressive Change? • Working Children as Change Makers: Perspectives from the South • Shifting Positions on Child Labor: The Views and Practice of Intergovernmental Organizations • Nongovernmental Organizations in the Struggle Against Child Labor • Earning and Learning: Tensions and Compatibility • Trade-Based Strategies for Combating Child Labor • Part 5 Conclusion: Contributors’ Consensus • Bringing Human Rights to Child Labor: Guiding Principles and Call to Action • Index.

About the Author: Burns H. Weston is Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and senior scholar of The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR), which he founded and directed for six years. His numerous works in the field of human rights include Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Action and The Future of International Human Rights. He also is a member of the Editorial Review Board of Human Rights and Human Welfare and honorary editor of the American Journal of International Law.

Target Audience: All Non Governmental organisation working in this field and General Public, Social Science, humanities, human rights activists.