The ILO (International Labour Organisation) estimates that half of the world’s working population live and work in South and South-East Asia, the largest number of child labourers in the world working in India. India’s government acknowledges a huge 17.5 million working children; the figure estimated by the ILO and other such groups puts the true number somewhere between 44 million and 100 million. In rural Tamil Nadu alone, children account for at least 14 percent of the entire workforce, working in factories making matchboxes, firecrackers and cigarettes.

There are an estimated 15 million child workers in Bangladesh. The majority of these children work in the garment industry, often in poor conditions: dim light, inadequate ventilation, sometimes locked in and forced to work all day. In a nation which is dependant on exporting garments to the West, many view such things as acceptable.

In Latin America, more than 30 percent of the households live below the poverty line and the amount of child labour is increasing, with many parents finding it necessary to send their children out to work in order to support their families. Industries such as commercial agriculture, mining, domestic work and even assembly factories in Mexico and Guatemala, have all been found to benefit from child labour.

Estimates made by the government assume that approximately 800,000 Colombian children under the age of eighteen work, mainly in mining and farming. On 300 known flower plantations, children help grow and cut flowers for export on a wage less than the minimum wage required by law. As protective clothing is not usually provided, many are exposed to toxic pesticides known as carcinogenic substances.

Many African nations employ children traditionally in rural areas, gathering firewood, harvesting crops, herding animals and fetching water. The majority of families look upon this as beneficial to the children, believing it promotes responsibility and participation within the community. As industry in urban centres rises, more and more child workers are taking on factory work and domestic work, as well as jobs found on the street such as shoe shining and car washing. Across the entire continent of Africa, these children are thought to make up as much as 17 percent of the continent’s workforce.

Tanzania’s underage workforce numbers roughly 13.2 million, many of whom work as long as 11 hours a day, six days a week on plantations growing fibres for twine, cable, rope and other exportable products. Children on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, hunt through the city dump for items that can be recycled: paper, plastics, glass and scrap metal. They receive a meagre amount from the middlemen for their findings, sometimes as little as scraps of old food about to be thrown away. These children face the risks of pneumonia in the rainy season, receiving painful and possibly infected lacerations from sharp pieces of rubbish, and bites from rats and poisonous snakes whose home is the scavenging ground of children working on the streets. Despite these dangers, they are provided with no medical care by the middlemen.

In Thailand, an estimated 2 million children work as prostitutes in the thriving sex trade. Some have been sold into the profession by their parents, despite the attempts of teachers and authorities to dissuade families from this practice.

The numbers in this article, as stated, are mainly approximations, but even so, the implications are horrific – and those numbers are set to rise. Child labour is more than grim statistics, however. Stories of individual children whose lives have been irrevocably altered prove its tragic proportions.

Nine-year-old Easwaris worked in a fireworks and matches factory in Tamil Nadu, India. Packed into a 15 by 20-foot room with 11 other children, she toiled 12 hours a day loading sulphur, aluminium dust and coal into firecracker tubes.

In this region where farming is dependent on unreliable monsoons and thwarted by long dry spells, farmers like Easwaris' father, Subbaraj, are often forced to abandon their small patches of land and seek other work. Subbaraj became a field hand for 50 cents a day -- not enough to purchase the family's daily portions of rice, let alone other necessities. So two of his young daughters went to work.

Easwaris had heard of some of the accidents that had happened to some of the other children working in the factory – the total figure of child workers in this factory alone numbered approximately 70,000 – but had never thought she would experience one.

One day, an explosion ripped through the factory when some of the children attempted the highly dangerous task of cutting gunpowder fuses. The blast killed 12 children, including Easwaris' 8-year-old sister, Munnishwaris, and burned Easwaris and six others. At just 14 years old, Easwaris still bears serious burn scars on her arm, hips, and back.

More was to follow. In the wake of the accident, ruthless employers easily took advantage of Easwaris' illiterate parents. The factory foreman had Easwaris' father, Subburaj, sign a blank sheet of paper, which later turned out to document his supposed receipt of about $400, compensation for Munnishwaris' death, and his promise not to involve the police. Since then, Subburaj has received only half the recompense, while the factory dangles the balance before him so he won't go to authorities. Easwaris, forced to "sign" a fake document with her thumbprint while lying in pain in the hospital, never received compensation for her injuries.

In some countries those speaking out against child labour can be persecuted, often on false charges, their families threatened and even killed. Police harassment is common, as are death threats. This betrayal of justice by those meant to serve and protect it leaves children with no means of escaping from this nightmare world of near-slavery.

In some cases, police demand sexual services from street children, threatening them with arrest if they do not comply. In detention and correctional facilities children may be sexually abused by staff or are not protected from sexual abuse by other inmates. In refugee camps many children are exploited by adults or sometimes forced to sell their bodies for food. Children in orphanages may be abused by staff members or other children. In conflict areas children are kidnapped to serve as child soldiers and also as sexual servants for adult soldiers. Children working as domestics may be assaulted or raped by employers.

This grim picture is compounded by the use of children as prostitutes in countries throughout the world. An unknown but very large number of children are used for commercial sexual purposes every year, the often result the destruction of their health, victims of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Younger and younger children are sought with the expectation that clients will not be exposed to HIV. Prostituted children can be raped, beaten, sodomized, emotionally abused, tortured, and even killed by pimps, brothel owners, and customers. Some have been trafficked from one country to another; both boys and girls are trafficked. Moreover, child prostitutes are frequently treated as criminals by law enforcement and judicial authorities, rather than as children who are victims of sexual exploitation.

Yet if those who are looked upon as guardians of the law and judicial system fail to uphold these basic moral values, fail to honour the sanctity of helpless children, to protect their innocence – who will?

For someone must.

CyberPol is dedicated to fighting crime and corruption such as this.

If the governments of the countries named above are failing to act with knowledge of the conditions suffered by these children, then they are surely, by all humanitarian standards, criminals. If the lack of action is due to their lack of knowledge, then they are just as surely criminally negligent.