The International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the World Day Against Child Labour in 2002 to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. Each year on 12 June, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers organizations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child labourers what can be done to help them.
WHAT IS CHILD LABOUR?
Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children’s or adolescent’s participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life. The term”child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that:
- is mentally, physically, socially and morally dangerous and harmful to children;and/or
- interferes with their schooling by; depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.
The worst forms of child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illness and left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities o, often at a very early age. Whether or not particular forms of “work” can be called “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries.
2021 THEME
For the global anti-child labour community, we are particularly looking forward to 2021 being the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour. The issue of child labour has seen real progess in the last 20 years. There are 100 million fewer children in child labour now, a stunning number. ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour is the only universally ratified Convention in ILO history, with Convention 138 (concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment) not far behind with only 14 countries left to act. Both conventions contribute to the national legacy policy frameworks necessary for the prevention and remediation of child labour. The current development agenda and framework of the Sustainable Development Goals includes a specific and separate target to end all forms of child labour by 2025, per SDG target 8.7. Further, the global alliance 8.7 is spreaheading the achievements of this target, bringing all stakeholders together and encouraging countries to commit to accelerate efforts to address child labour via their ‘Pathfinder Country’ mechanism, resulting in commitments by 22 countries to date.
With this significant progress, there have also been setbacks. As per available estimates, the total number of children in work globally stands at an incredible 152 million, with the pace of reduction slowing in the past couple of years. Child labour in agriculture, which is largely informal and under regulated, has increased and now stands at 108 million. This highlights both the progress in the formal sectors of the global economy and the tremendous need to redouble efforts in the informal sector.
National child labour laws and policies remain under enforced and under resourced. Examples of this include weak labour inspection systems that barely touch the informal economy where the majority of child labour is found, and delayed review or publication of national lists of hazardous work prohibited for children under the age of 18. The biggest setback has been the year long and continuing pandemic which is reversing the progress made thus far, keeping children out of school and increasingly into work with the socio-economic impacts further pushing already vulnerable communities to the margins.
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