This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Tula Connell.

Some 52 million people older than 15—primarily women—labor as domestic workers around the world, according to a report released today by the International Labor Organization (ILO). Of those, 83 percent are women. The vast number of domestic workers, 21.4 million, are in Asia and the Pacific region, with 19.6 million in Latin America, 5.2 million in Africa and 2.1 million in the Middle East.

It's only fitting the musical version of the story of the 1899 Newsboys Strike in New York City would garner the Actors' Equity (AEA) Advisory Committee on Chorus Affairs (ACCA) Sixth Annual ACCA Award for Outstanding Broadway Chorus. The Broadway musical lifts up the true events of newsboys (a.k.a. "newsies") who organized together in a successful two-week strike against newspaper giants Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst for better wages. 

Around the globe, 215 million children are engaged in child labor, including an estimated 6 million in forced labor. Annual reports, released this week by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), tracks the progress and lack of progress in combating child labor. The reports, said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis:   

Remind us of what happens to the most vulnerable members of society when poverty and labor exploitation unite.

Anastasia Christman is a senior policy analyst with the National Employment Law Project.

Last month activists all over the planet shined a light on the persistence of child labor on the World Day Against Child Labor. As many as 215 million children worldwide lose the chance to learn, play and grow as they instead are compelled to join the workforce, often under grueling conditions. As we in the United States celebrate the anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) passed in 1938, we should recommit to the part of its mission dedicated to fighting oppressive child labor in our own country. 

At a time of economic turmoil and austerity measures in many countries, Brazil is getting deserved recognition for its successes in lifting nearly 40 million of its citizens out of extreme poverty over the past 10 years while fostering economic expansion for the nation.

A well-attended brown bag discussion at the AFL-CIO this week provided background on Brazil’s transformation, insights about the work needed to continue improving conditions for Brazilian workers and unions and food for thought about the examples Brazil has set for the United States and the world.

The U.S. Department of Labor has added three products to the list of goods produced by forced labor, child labor or both. The list now includes 133 products from 71 countries, ranging from bamboo in Burma to zinc in Bolivia. Added to the list yesterday are bricks in Afghanistan and cassiterite and coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Here’s the latest Republican justification for child labor: It prevents obesity.

It wasn’t enough for presidential wanna-be Newt Gingrich to push child labor by proposing that poor kids clean schools. Now he says children from low-income families only work when the “job” is illegal. This from CBS News:

Newt Gingrich, who says child labor laws are “truly stupid” and wants to put low-income children in poor neighborhoods to work cleaning schools after he fires “all the unionized janitors,” has found an acolyte—Donald Trump.

Around the world, some 215 million children—nearly one in seven—go to jobs or labor at home rather than attend school. American history, too, is rife with the stories of children made to work in factories and mines.