Thank you all for gathering today for this important event focusing on child labor – an egregious human rights issue affecting an estimated 215 million children around the globe. Children everywhere deserve a bright future with access to education so they can break the cycle of poverty. I urge you to join the ILO’s campaign to end the worst forms of child labor, which includes trafficking of children, by 2016.

As Secretary Clinton has stated, "working together, we can provide families across the world with meaningful alternatives to child labor and by doing that we address the root causes – including inequality, inadequate access to education, a lack of decent work for parents, poor enforcement of labor laws – all of which perpetuate the cycle of poverty."

We are proud to stand with the ILO and its local and international partners in the fight against child labor. Just last year, the U.S. government committed fifteen million dollars through a grant to a non-governmental organization aimed at preventing child labor in the Philippines. This four year effort targets 52,000 children either engaged in or at risk of entering exploitive labor in the sugar cane industry. The program seeks to not only strengthen educational services, but also provide livelihood training to parents to address one of the root causes of child labor.

We know that much work needs to be done to provide families with alternatives to child labor, and we are encouraged by the commitment demonstrated by the government, the ILO, and civil society organizations in the Philippines to tackle this issue head on. Working together, we can, and will, make a difference.