100s of Children in Cambodia Work in Brick Factories, Report Finds
Hundreds of children work in Cambodian brick factories, according to a survey by labor groups. A government spokesman denied the report’s findings.
The Labor Ministry last year launched a campaign to end child labor in brick kilns and announced it would crack down on brick kiln owners that still employ children.
The survey found that almost 4,000 minors lived in the compounds of 464 operational kilns in the country, and that 638 children currently worked in them. The survey was conducted mainly in July by the Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based worker rights organization allied with the AFL-CIO, an American labor federation, and the Building and Wood Workers Trade Union Federation of Cambodia.
Leonie Kijewski
