September 20th is World Children's Day – an important date in the action calendar of Terre des Hommes volunteer groups. With this year's theme, "Exploitative Child Labor? Not with us!", our volunteers championed the rights of working children. Whether at engagement fairs, children's festivals, markets, exhibitions, or in the heart of pedestrian zones – every opportunity was seized. Because 54 million girls and boys work under dangerous and exploitative conditions: they pick cotton, mine gold, mica, or iron ore in narrow, unsecured shafts, toil twelve hours a day in factories, or are at the mercy of their employers as domestic servants, often for starvation wages. They have hardly any time left for school, leisure, or a carefree childhood.
The volunteers raised awareness nationwide about exploitative child labor in global supply chains and appealed to people to rethink their own consumption habits. With our brochure "Consumption without Child Labor," they gave consumers concrete tips for more conscious shopping.
Further information can be found at www.tdh.de: