Want to Help Stop Child Labor? There’s an App for That.

To combat child labor we need to use every tool available. Here’s one with major potential.

Exploitative child labor has far deeper roots than any Smartphone app can possibly address, but it certainly helps to get such technology on our side in this fight. The Kid Rescue App hopes to do just that.

Though the app began in Columbia, it’s now available for worldwide use. In an article for the Christian Science Monitor, Mauricio García of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF), the group that receives all the information sent in by users, said: “It’s a tool that puts the power to report child labor in the palm of anyone’s hands.” Sure, there can and will be negatives associated with this, but I spent some time playing around with the app here in Thailand and eventually came to realize how big of a help it could have been if I’d had it during some of my travels.

I couldn’t find the app as “Kid Rescue” when I tried to download it, so try searching the creator’s name – “Foonkie Monkey” – if you run into a similar problem. The app could not have a more simple and intuitive design, however, it will take some basic Spanish language skill or translation to get the hang of. As the popularity and use increases, I’m sure an English version will soon be available. Here’s the official Kid Rescue App video:

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