Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Thomson Reuters Foundation
The United Nations says child labour is on the rise for the first time in 20 years, with millions more young people at risk of becoming child labourers due to the economic shocks and school closures caused by COVID-19.
Here are 10 facts about where and why child labour persists, ahead of Saturday’s World Day Against Child Labour:
1. Every day, more than 5,700 children enter the child labour workforce for the first time.
2. An estimated 97 million boys and 63 million girls are child labourers.
A scavenger’s child sits near a bag of collected recyclable waste at the Dandora dumpsite, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Eastlands Nairobi, Kenya, on 29th July, 2020. PICTURE: Reuters/Thomas Mukoya
3. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to most of the world’s child labourers, with some 87 million, or 24 per cent, of children in work, and little progress in ending SCRIchild labour in recent years.
4. Child labour is falling steadily in Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean, where about six per cent of children work.
5. Agriculture is the most common sector for child labour, employing 112 million, or 70 per cent, of working children, while 20 per cent work in services and 10 per cent in industry.
6. Almost three-quarters of child labour takes place within families and often due to poverty, the sudden illness of a caregiver, or job loss of a primary wage earner.
7. More than one-third of child labourers aged five to 17 are out of school, severely constraining their prospects for decent work and their overall life potential.
8. Child labour can result in extreme bodily and mental harm, and even death as children can be exposed to injuries, sexual and physical abuse and slavery.
9. Global progress against child labour has stalled for the first time in two decades and the COVID-19 crisis is likely to push a further 8.9 million children into child labour by the end of 2022 without action.
10. Solutions to reduce child labour include universal child benefits, getting children back into the classroom and promoting decent work for adults.
Sources: International Labour Organization, UN Children’s Fund.
