For the children of Ribnovo, the winter marks a brief respite, when the tobacco crop in this Bulgarian village on the border with Greece needs no tending. In spring schoolchildren aged from seven to 17 work up to nine hours a day planting. In summer they weed, then harvest, bent double under the burning sun.

Come autumn they iron leaves, stifled by clouds of dust. Now at last they may sell their meagre tobacco harvest.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/05/bulgaria-children-tobacco-industry

Child labour is serious problem in Bulgaria, according to member of parliamentary Child Rights Committee

https://www.bghelsinki.org/en/news/child-labour-is-serious-problem-in-bulgaria-according-to-member-of-parliamentary-child-rights-committee

Hundreds of schoolchildren have been drafted in to make Amazon’s Alexa devices in China as part of a controversial and often illegal attempt to meet production targets, documents seen by the Guardian reveal. Interviews with workers and leaked documents from Amazon’s supplier Foxconn show that many of the children have been required to work nights and overtime to produce the smart-speaker devices, in breach of Chinese labour laws.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/aug/08/schoolchildren-in-china-work-overnight-to-produce-amazon-alexa-devices

June 12 is World Day Against Child Labor.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 152 million children are still in child labor today. Child labor occurs in all industries, but 7 of every 10 child laborers is in the agricultural sector.

Some of the most common industries that employ child labor include cocoa, coffee, cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, garments/fashion, and gold.

Visibility into the supply chains of these commodities is a critical first step in identifying and ultimately eliminating child labor. Many of these industries play key roles in the global economy, making the need to eliminate child labor a daunting yet crucially important task.

https://www.transparency-one.com/tackling-child-labor-in-global-supply-chains/

Chinese clothes factories import cheap child labour from across China

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2048231/clothing-factories-eastern-china-import-child-labour-migrant

When fish lead to piracy In Somalia, piracy off the country's coastline can be traced back to 1991, the year the country's government collapsed and international vessels began fishing there illegally.

Because the country no longer had a coast guard to patrol its shores, Somali fishermen began attacking the international vessels.

Brashares said few of the academics and journalists he'd spoken to had known about the conflict's origins. "We've really glorified [piracy] in a different way," Brashares said. "It really started as a battle for fish."

In Ghana, depleted fish populations have meant fishermen had to work harder to harvest a big enough catch.

To reduce costs, fishermen have used forced child labor for dangerous tasks like mending underwater nets. Thousands of children are working in the fishing industry in Ghana, according to a 2012 report by the U.S. Department of Labor.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-loss-of-wildlife-leads-to-child-slavery/

Microsoft, Lenovo and Renault have made least progress

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/11/industry-giants-fail-to-tackle-child-labour-allegations-in-cobalt-battery-supply-chains/

Fast fashion has engendered a race to the bottom, pushing companies to find ever-cheaper sources of labour.

That cheap labour is freely available in many of the countries where textile and garment production takes place

https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/

UNICEF: $1.4b For Employees’ Benefits; Only $0.141b Left For Children?

https://www.theperspective.org/2020/0406202003.php

Unicef admits failings with child victims of alleged sex abuse by peacekeepers

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/feb/13/unicef-admits-failings-with-child-victims-of-alleged-sex-abuse-by-peacekeepers

Italy's national child abuse hotline, Telefono Azzurro, on Thursday reported that 84% of child labour exploitation cases reported to the organisation involve begging, 85% of which involve foreign children.

Of those cases, 71.4% of children are between the ages of 0-10 years old, with nearly half of all cases, or 41.3%, reported in southern Italy, said Telefono Azzurro.

Child Labor and Forced Labor Reports  Turkey

Children in Turkey engage in the worst forms of child labor, including commercial sexual exploitation and recruitment by non-state armed groups.

Children also perform dangerous tasks in seasonal agriculture and in small and medium manufacturing enterprises.  

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/turkey