Child Labour On Rise For First Time In 20 Yrs: ILO’s DG

News Desk

United Nations: For the first time in 20 years, child labour is on the rise. Some 160 million children work to earn a living globally instead of going to school, said International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director General Gilbert Houngbo.

“Child labour rarely happens because parents are bad or do not care. Rather, it springs from a lack of social justice,” stated Gilbert Houngbo.

More than half of all those subjected to child labour, some 86.6 million, are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to joint research by the ILO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Almost 24 per cent of all children in the region, or close to one in four, are in child labour. Most of those in child labour on the African continent and indeed worldwide, work in agriculture.

One in every 10 children works, instead of going to school: UN agency

Agriculture accounts for 70 per cent of child labour globally and the numbers of youngsters working in the sector are on the rise, according toUN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Child labour is three times more prevalent among rural smallholders in farming, fishing, or forestry than in urban areas, further stated FAO.

The agency emphasised that children often assist their parents in producing crops, rearing livestock, or catching fish, ‘mainly for family consumption’.While not all this work is considered child labour, ‘for too many children, their work, particularly in agriculture, goes beyond the limits of safety and well-being and crosses into a form of labour that can harm their health or educational opportunities’.

FAO underscored the need to tackle the issue ‘from the field right up to the global level, to ensure that children have a childhood’.

The agency stated it is working with partners on eliminating child labour in key sectors such as cocoa, cotton and coffee.

I am deeply concerned that the number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide.

The most effective solutions are decent work for adults & social protection, to ensure all children can go to school, not work.

We need #SocialJusticeForAll to #EndChildLabour. pic.twitter.com/xL7Btn4MUV

— Gilbert F. Houngbo (@GilbertFHoungbo) June 12, 2023

FAO said it has also developed a framework on ending child labour in agriculture, aiming to provide guidance to policymakers, and has supported countries such as Uganda and Cabo Verde in developing prevention policies.

Gilbert stressed that the ‘most effective solutions’ to the child labour emergency are decent work for adults so that they can provide for their families and improved social protection.

Director General emphasised that tackling the root causes of child labour requires ending forced labour, creating safe and healthy workplaces, letting workers organise and make their voices heard, and ending discrimination since child labour often affects the most marginalised.

Together with the ILO and the European Union, FAO has reached more than 10,000 women, men, youth, and children in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Pakistan as part of a project aiming to address child labour in cotton value chains by improving households’ livelihoods, empowering women economically, and raising awareness of the problem.