As in many other countries, child labour in Switzerland affected among the so-called Kaminfegerkinder ("chimney sweep children") and children working p.e. in spinning mills, factories and in agriculture in 19th-century Switzerland, but also to the 1960s so-called Verdingkinder (literally: "contract children" or "indentured child laborers") were children who were taken from their parents, often due to poverty or moral reasons – usually mothers being unmarried, very poor citizens, of Gypsy–Yeniche origin, so-called Kinder der Landstrasse, etc. – and sent to live with new families, often poor farmers who needed cheap labour.
