How has DOGE affected child labor policies worldwide?

The Trump administration, with backing from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has made a devastating move that threatens to undo decades of progress in the global fight against child labor and modern slavery. By canceling millions of dollars in international grants administered by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), the government has effectively shut down dozens of programs that were actively working to protect some of the world’s most vulnerable children. For more than 20 years, ILAB has supported projects that directly reduced the number of children in dangerous labor conditions—cutting global child labor by 78 million. These efforts included helping children forced to pick cotton in Uzbekistan, providing labor rights education to farmworkers in Mexico, and fighting child exploitation in West Africa’s cocoa industry, where children as young as ten used machetes and faced toxic chemical exposure.

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Now, that work is being dismantled. According to internal communications, these programs are not simply on pause—they are being closed entirely. And the consequences are enormous. Reid Maki, coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition, warned that without ILAB’s support, we are not just halting progress—we’re about to see a surge in child labor cases worldwide. An estimated 160 million children are already engaged in child labor, and nearly half of them are in hazardous conditions. These are children who should be in classrooms, not fields; who should be safe, not swinging machetes or suffering from chemical exposure.

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The administration defends the decision by claiming it reflects the will of American voters who want to cut government spending and “put America first.” But critics argue that this is a short-sighted and morally bankrupt approach. Not only does it abandon children who are victims of exploitation, but it also undermines American businesses and workers. Many U.S. companies rely on ILAB’s data to ensure their products are not tied to forced or child labor. Without these tools, the chances of unethical labor practices seeping into global supply chains—and even back into the U.S.—increase dramatically. As Catherine Feingold of the AFL-CIO put it, this move risks taking us “so far back in time,” undoing critical labor protections and turning a blind eye to human suffering.

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Young people must take a stand. If our generation doesn’t speak up, children our age and younger will pay the price. We must demand the restoration of ILAB’s funding, call out corporations that benefit from exploited labor, and hold elected officials accountable for choosing cost-cutting over compassion. The fight to end child labor is far from over—but if we don’t act now, the damage could last for generations.

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Source:

https://apnews.com/article/child-forced-labor-trump-doge-cuts-42a5e1b65d1ef1473bbff0bfc8194d81