The use and exploitation of child labor is not new, but it has only recently attracted the attention of governments and politicians. In part, recent attention to child labor is in response to its growth. The rise in the number of child laborers is not due to a transformation of the socioeconomic environment from an agricultural society to an industrializing society. Poverty is the greatest threat to the child's right to survival and development. Poverty is the root cause of lack of schooling, insufficient nutrition, and inadequate health care.
Poverty leads to the exploitation of children as laborers and to sexual exploitation.
Therefore, the struggle against the exploitation of children, and the fight for children's rights, is part of the overall fight against poverty. Thus poverty not only lies at the root of child labor, but child labor contributes to and perpetuates it. In this sense, poverty is both the cause and the consequence of child labor. The Government's Line Many national governments try to justify the use of child labor on the grounds of poverty and underdevelopment. They reason that if countries eliminate child labor, then wages will rise due to the decrease of laborers in the market, which will, in turn, drive valuable jobs away, further impoverishing the nation.