Interest Groups,\' Are Fighting Against

¶ … interest groups,' are fighting against child labor in the United States to make the world a better place in the future.

Abolishment of Child Labor

There are various kinds of interest groups that are categorized according to their organizational degree as in whether they are peak associations or membership associations, their structure and their legal forms. There are public and private groups, where the publics ones aim to benefit the entire society while the private ones just achieve goals that are for their members only.

Public interest groups as the name implies are formed to share public concerns like consumer protection, environmental pollution, and various other social issues. These groups share common values and interests regarding similar issues. The types of groups that come under this category include environmental groups and consumer organizations. Greenpeace is an organization that is functioning to save the environment both in the United States and in Germany.

At least one child out of every four in the developing world is toiling under conditions resembling slavery according to the UNICEF. Although, child labor is commonly thought of as a problem of the developing world, however it is by no means a thing of the past in the rich countries.

Child labor is so grave an abuse of human rights that the world must come to regard it in the way it does slavery- as something unjustifiable under any circumstances. An estimated 250 million children aged 5- 14 years are engaged in hazardous work, prostitution and bonded labor according to the 1997 state of the 'Worlds Children' report.

Hazardous child labor is a betrayal of every child right's as a human being and is an offense against our civilizations. One myth is that children work only in poor countries. In the U.S.A., one of the world's richest countries, a high proportion of children working in agriculture come from immigrant or ethnic minority families.

The numbers are estimates but even if they were to be accurate, the truth is horrifying. Almost, no corner of the world, from the poorest back street of Latin America to the ritziest European can claim to be immune. There are 70,000 child prostitutes in Zambia, 200,000 in Thailand and 50,000 in India.

As delegates from 122 countries gathered in Stockholm for the first world congress on the commercial sexual exploitation of children, the research they brought with them revealed the staggering scale of child sex abuse.

The commercial sexual exploitation of children has become a global multi-million dollar industry. The effects of sexual exploitation on children are profound and often permanent. Normal development is compromised; self-esteem and confidence are undermined. The vast majority of sexually exploited children are denied their right to education. Many are ostracized by their families and communities.