10.5 Million Children Work As Domestic Slaves, New ILO Study Reveals

The International Labor Organization released a report on Wednesday that sheds light on the stunning number of children worldwide who work as domestic servants.

Up to 10.5 million children around the globe currently work in homes cleaning, cooking, fetching water, taking care of children and looking after elderly members of the household.

The children are often subject to physical, psychological and sexual violence, ABC reported. In addition, the kids are usually separated from their parents and families, hidden away and grow dependent on their employers.

According to director of the ILO's global program to remove child labor Constance Thomas, most of these young servants are girls. 6.5 million of the domestic workers are between ages 5 and 14 years old. Many of them risk being forced into prostitution.

"The situation of many child domestic workers not only constitutes a serious violation of child rights, but remains an obstacle to the achievement of many national and international development objectives," she said.

She also expressed a need for legislation to hel[ prevent child labor.

"We need a robust legal framework to clearly identify, prevent and eliminate child labor in domestic work and to provide decent working conditions to adolescents when they can legally work," she stated.

Another difficulty the children who work as domestic laborers face is their status in limbo: their work is not seen as a harsh way of putting kids to the grindstone in many countries because of blurred lines between the child and their employer family-the children are not seen as workers, but they are not treated as a family member either.

The report says this can be detrimental psychologically, especially for children under 17 years old that comprise around five percent of all young people working in the domestic service sector.

Many female domestic workers must travel from countries as Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka to find work-some of them embark on illegal migrations that are dangerous and near-deadly.

The 87-page report was released on World Day Against Child Labor, June 12. That same day, Pope Francis lit in on the "deplorable" exploitation of children in domestic workplaces.

"There are millions of minors, mostly young girls, who are victims of this form of hidden exploitation which often includes sexual abuse, poor treatment and discrimination," he said in a message to ILO.