The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 152 million children worldwide are engaged in child labor. For the past four years, Verité partnered with Winrock International and Lawyers Without Borders to address this problem by providing technical assistance to governments in five countries: Burkina Faso, Liberia, Nepal, Belize, and Panama. The project had three goals: to improve governments’ response to child labor, decrease the number of children exploited, and increase awareness of child labor in the private sector.
Verité, in partnership with Winrock and Lawyers without Borders, is helping to implement CLEAR II, a project to reduce the prevalence of child labor in eight countries. This four-year project which began in 2014, is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and addresses the circumstances that contribute to child labor and builds on the CLEAR I project, which is being implemented by the ILO. Verité’s role in this partnership includes providing technical support to public officials and private companies to reduce child labor. Eight countries are involved in this project including Nepal, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Honduras, Panama, and Belize, with two others still to be named.