June 12th is “World Day Against Child Labour” and 2021 marks the year of the “International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour”. This day and year are being highlighted with a special week, “Week of Action” between 10-17 June.
There are approximately 160 million children forced into labour across the world. This is an increase of 8.4 million children over the past four years, as stated in a new joint report by International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.
Even though the rise began before the outbreak of the corona virus, it threatens to make a bad situation even worse. With a significant amount of time in lockdowns, closed schools and countries with shrinking state budgets, many poor families are forced into sending their children out to work in order to make ends meet.
The most common sector for child labour is agriculture, which accounts for 70 per cent of total. Other sectors include domestic work, sexual exploitation and prostitution, drug manufacturing and distribution, and the industrial sector, such as manufacturing.
These children are often forced to work in slave-like conditions. Even though all child labour should be eliminated, the priority is to eliminate the worst forms where children are separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards, are in slavery or similar.
It is not difficult to understand that child labour puts children at risk of physical and mental harm. In order to end it, the ILO and UNICEF wants to, amongst other activities, see investments and development; in child protection systems, in infrastructure and in the agricultural sector, in social protection and universal child benefits as well as demand decent work conditions for adults – to help stop children being forced to work.
Please refer to https://endchildlabour2021.org to see what you can do to help.
Links:
ILO – Act now; end child labour!
UNICEF – Child labour rises to 160 million – first increase in two decades