Child labour is a pervasive problem throughout the world, especially in developing countries. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has estimated that  250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries- at least 120 million on a full time basis.  Asia and Africa together account for over 90 percent of total child employment.

Child labour is one of the biggest issues around the world because it puts children in danger, it deprives them of  education. Child labour is the employment of children as wage earners. Child labour usually means work done by children under the age of fifteen, which limits or damages their physical, mental, social or psychological development. Most working children in rural areas are found in agriculture; many children work as domestics; urban children work in trade and services, with fewer in manufacturing and construction.  Children work for a variety of reasons, the most important being poverty.  Though children are not well paid, they still serve as major contributors to family income of poor people in developing countries.

Schooling problems also contribute to child labour, whether it is the inaccessibility of schools or the faulty  system of education which spurs parents to enter their children in more profitable pursuits. Traditional factors such as rigid cultural and social roles in certain countries further limit educational attainment and increase child labour. Slavery, debt bondage, trafficking also create more and more child labourers.