Child labor is partly caused by low wages paid to adult workers. If adult workers were properly paid, then families wouldn’t need their children to help produce soccer balls.  ILRF believes that child labor is the result of many issues and it's important to understand the complexity of the issue.  ILRF just released a report detailing the horrendous working conditions faced by workers stitching soccer balls.  Many of the workers told ILRF researchers in Pakistan point blank that they don’t have enough money to send their children to school and that the parents wish they could offer a future to their children.  In the blog by Mr. Tragakis, he mentions the shift that occurred when child labor was highlighted in the 1990s in connection with soccer ball stitching which was thought to lead to the child laborers merely shifting to other industries such as brick kilns.  The shift of child labor to brick making proves the failure of a decade long effort which exclusively focused on child labor that left fundamental issues such as low wages and dangerous working conditions unaddressed in Sialkot and the surrounding areas.

What we need is a comprehensive reform of the current supply chain and
production network system, and it is not only possible, but also
essential to build a world without child labor.