ACE seeks to strengthen governments and communities in Asia to address the worst forms of child labor, including the online sexual exploitation of children, and promote acceptable conditions of work through a unified and participatory approach in the Philippines and Vietnam.

The ATLAS project builds the capacity of governments to combat child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking by helping them strengthen their laws, regulations, and enforcement efforts and enhance coordination between law enforcement and social protection entities. After completing the implementation and institutionalization of interventions in Argentina, Thailand, and Paraguay in 2022, ATLAS will continue working in Liberia to help develop a new child labor law and advocate for its passage. The project will also support the dissemination, implementation, and institutionalization of best practices in support of labor laws and policies recently approved by the Government of Liberia.

The BuildCA2P Project works to build the capacity of Filipino civil society to more effectively detect and combat child labor and other labor abuses in the agricultural sector in Mindanao, Philippines. It leverages partnerships with academic and advocacy organizations to build a grassroots movement, empower vulnerable families, connect survivors to grievance mechanisms and services, and reduce the risk that children will be harmed by performing hazardous work in agriculture.

The SAFE Seas project works to counter forced labor and human trafficking on fishing vessels in Indonesia and the Philippines. The project works to strengthen government enforcement capacity and deepen engagement among fishers, the private sector and civil society. As a result, SAFE Seas helps to promote supply chains free of exploitative labor and a fair playing field for workers in the U.S. and around the world.

The United States supports the goal of bringing meaningful change to the lives of the 152 million child laborers and the 25 million adults and children in forced labor around the world by eradicating child labor, forced labor and human trafficking. USDOL’s MAP 16 project supports this goal through efforts to (1) improve the knowledge base on child labor, forced labor and human trafficking; (2) improve awareness of these issues through the use of data-driven techniques; (3) strengthen policies and improve the capacity of governments and other stakeholders to combat child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking through national, regional, and global initiatives; and (4) strengthen partnerships to accelerate progress in combatting child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.

The project builds the capacity of workers’ organizations or other civil society organizations to assist foreign migrant workers in Malaysia.

Our impact evaluation projects use rigorous quantitative techniques to evaluate the impact of interventions on reducing child labor, forced labor and human trafficking—part of a broader ILAB effort to build rigorous evidence on what works to secure and protect the rights of children and adults. Such evaluations support our partner governments’ evidence-based policymaking efforts, and also help identify proven strategies to inform ILAB’s future investments in global programs to combat child labor and forced labor.