Abstract

Human rights abuses or violations, as Derechos Human Rights (2008) has noted, take many different forms, such as torture, genocide, slavery, denial of freedom of speech, repudiation of freedom of the press, and mass disappearances of individuals.

With respect to violations relating to children’s rights and freedoms, the following assessment paraphrased from an IRIN (2007) online publication and a BBC (2004) news report regarding incessant infringements of such rights and freedoms in selected African countries provides a good example: Women and girls are raped and sexually abused by perpetrators from different parties to conflicts in the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Sudan, and Uganda; and children are recruited as combatants and sex slaves in Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, and the Sudan.

This article is designed to provide a survey of the following themes relating to violations of the rights and freedoms of children worldwide: (a) the basic rights of children; (b) the issue of child labor; (c) the nature of child labor; (d) the causes of child labor; (e) the negative and beneficial effects of child labor; (f) the use of children as articles of trade; and (g) suggested deterrents to child labor.