How many child labourers are in the world

Child labor: Facts, FAQs, and how to help end it

About 160 million children ages 5 to 17 around the world are engaged in child labor, working in jobs that deprive them of their childhood, interfere with schooling, or harm their mental, physical, or social development. Nearly half of them — 79 million children — work under hazardous conditions. By definition, child labor is a violation of both child protection and child rights.

June 12 is the United Nations-sanctioned World Day Against Child Labor, a time to remember the young workers who have been robbed of their childhood, education, and the future they deserve.

FAQS: What you need to know about child labor

Get facts about this issue, and learn how you can help end it.

Fast facts: Child labor
What is the definition of child labor?
Where is it a problem?
What is a primary driver of child labor?
What are the worst forms of child labor?
Has child labor increased or decreased over time?
How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted child labor?
What is World Vision doing to end child labor?
How can I help end child labor?
History of child labor

Fast facts: Child labor

At the beginning of 2020, 63 million girls and 97 million boys were in child labor, accounting for about 1 in 10 children worldwide.
About 70% of these children — 112 million — work in agriculture, mostly in farming and livestock herding.
Across all age groups, boys are more likely to work than girls.
1 in 3 children in child labor are out of school.
86.6 million children are engaged in child labor in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by central and southern Asia with 26.3 million.
Numbers are rising, particularly in the 5- to 11-year-old group, and the coronavirus pandemic threatens to reverse years of progress.

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What is the definition of child labor?

Child labor is the exploitation of children who are deprived of their childhood by work that prevents them from attending school or causes physical, mental, or social harm. Children are especially vulnerable to injuries in their early developmental years, even though physical and mental health problems may not be evident for years.

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Where is it a problem?

Child labor is concentrated in the world’s poorest countries. It is also common in the most dangerous places where insecurity or armed conflict exist. Sub-Saharan Africa has 86.6 million child laborers, more than anywhere else.

Family poverty and ill-equipped schools are two major reasons children in low-income countries are in the labor force. However, child labor isn’t confined to low-income countries. It’s a problem in all countries, to some degree: More than half of all child laborers live in middle-income countries.

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What is a primary driver of child labor?

Poverty is the primary reason children are sent to work. Sadly, child labor keeps children from getting the education they need to break the cycle of poverty. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), a U.N. agency, about 70% of child laborers work in agriculture. Others work long hours in factories, domestic service, or forced labor, such as child soldiers and children exploited in the commercial sex trade.

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What are the worst forms of child labor?

The ILO’s Convention No. 182 defines hazardous and morally damaging forms of labor and calls for their immediate and total elimination. Worldwide, the ILO estimates that 22,000 child laborers are killed at work each year. As defined by the convention, the worst forms of child labor include:

Slavery or similar practices
Child trafficking
Forced recruitment into armed conflict
Prostitution and pornography
Drug production and trafficking or other illegal acts
Debt bondage
Hazardous work that can cause injury or moral corruption

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Has child labor increased or decreased over time?

From 2000 — when the ILO began monitoring this issue — to 2016, the number of children exploited fell by 94 million, a dramatic global reduction. However, the decline slowed between 2012 and 2016, and global progress was stagnant between 2016 and 2020 — the most recent reporting period.

The positive trend and stagnation have shifted negatively. “Global estimates in 2021 showed an increase of 8.4 million children in child labor in the last four years and a 6.5 million increase in the number of children engaged in hazardous work. As these figures suggest, there are still far too many children in exploitive work,” reports the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs.

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How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted child labor?

Due to rising poverty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 8.9 million additional children are at risk of being pushed into child labor by the end of 2022. A strong global effort will be required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating all forms of child labor worldwide by 2025.

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What is World Vision doing to end child labor?

World Vision places children at the center of all our work to transform communities for good. We empower children to know their rights and work toward their own well-being. And we work with their parents and communities to see that kids are protected and that their futures are not stolen by labor exploitation.

By taking initiative in these areas, we help create a protective environment that cares for and supports all children:

Providing educational services to enhance teaching quality and improve learning spaces
Providing support for parents to improve their incomes and food security so that children don’t need to work
Advocating for national child labor laws and their enforcement
Promoting social accountability for communities, governments, and businesses
Equipping communities — faith leaders, parents, and community groups — to monitor vulnerable children to keep them out of hazardous work and help their families survive without their child’s income
Promoting decent work for youth who are above the minimum working age through training, life skills, and entrepreneurship, as well as access to savings and credit services

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How can I help end child labor?

Pray for children trapped in work that puts them in danger or prevents them from attending school. Ask God to protect them from further exploitation so that they may enjoy the physical, mental, and spiritual nurture they need to live life to the full.
Give to support World Vision’s work around the world to protect children from labor and other forms of exploitation, abuse, and violence.
Sponsor a child. By investing in a child’s life, you’ll help them stay in school. You’ll also help build up their community so that there’ll be more job opportunities for them to pursue as adults.

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History of child labor

Throughout history, children have contributed to the economic upkeep of their families through farm labor and handicrafts. However, the growth of manufacturing and farm mechanization during the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries led to many children working under dangerous conditions in factories and farms. This in turn prompted laws that not only regulated conditions for kids working but also mandated education. Through the years:

1938: The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act restricts hours and types of jobs for children under age 16.

1973: The Minimum Age Convention, ratified by 172 countries, sets the minimum age for employment but allows some exceptions.

1989: The U.N. enacts the Convention on the Rights of the Child to guarantee the protection of children’s rights to grow and thrive.

1992: The International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) is founded to promote the global elimination of child labor and support countries in their efforts.

1999: The Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention, ratified by 186 countries, requires ending practices like slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor in armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, drug trafficking, and other illicit activities.

2021: The U.N. General Assembly declares this to be the Year for the Elimination of Child Labor.

2025: International commitment is set to end all forms of child labor this year under Target 8.7 of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.

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Sevil Omer of World Vision’s U.S. staff contributed to this article.

Child labour | UNICEF

Programme

Nearly 1 in 10 children are subjected to child labour worldwide, with some forced into hazardous work through trafficking.

UNICEF/UN0263808/Lister

Economic hardship exacts a toll on millions of families worldwide – and in some places, it comes at the price of a child’s safety. Roughly 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020, with 9 million additional children at risk due to the impact of COVID-19.

This accounts for nearly 1 in 10 children worldwide. Almost half of them are in hazardous work that directly endangers their health and moral development.

Children may be driven into work for various reasons. Most often, child labour occurs when families face financial challenges or uncertainty – whether due to poverty, sudden illness of a caregiver, or job loss of a primary wage earner.

The consequences are staggering. Child labour can result in extreme bodily and mental harm, and even death. It can lead to slavery and sexual or economic exploitation. And in nearly every case, it cuts children off from schooling and health care, restricting their fundamental rights and threatening their futures.

Migrant and refugee children – many of whom have been uprooted by conflict, disaster or poverty – also risk being forced into work and even trafficked, especially if they are migrating alone or taking irregular routes with their families.

Trafficked children are often subjected to violence, abuse and other human rights violations. And some may be forced to break the law. For girls, the threat of sexual exploitation looms large, while boys may be exploited by armed forces or groups.

Children on the move risk being forced into work or even trafficked – subjected to violence, abuse and other human rights violations.

Whatever the cause, child labour compounds social inequality and discrimination, and robs girls and boys of their childhood. Unlike activities that help children develop, such as contributing to light housework or taking on a job during school holidays, child labour limits access to education and harms a child’s physical, mental and social growth. Especially for girls, the “triple burden” of school, work and household chores heightens their risk of falling behind, making them even more vulnerable to poverty and exclusion.

Key facts

The number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide – an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years – with 9 million additional children at risk due to the impact of COVID-19.
Progress to end child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years, reversing the previous downward trend that saw child labour fall by 94 million between 2000 and 2016.
The incidence of hazardous work in countries affected by armed conflict is 50% higher than the global average.
30 million children live outside their country of birth, increasing their risk of being trafficked for sexual exploitation and other work.

UNICEF’s response

UNICEF/UNI281125/Herwig Children largely from the ethnic Dom community learn in a UNICEF-supported centre in Jordan, in 2019. With many of their families living in poverty, these children become especially vulnerable to negative coping mechanisms, like working on the street. Centres play a key role in identifying children who face challenges and helping them to enroll in formal and non-formal education.

UNICEF works to prevent and respond to child labour, especially by strengthening the social service workforce. Social service workers play a key role in recognizing, preventing and managing risks that can lead to child labour. Our efforts develop and support the workforce to identify and respond to potential situations of child labour through case management and social protection services, including early identification, registration and interim rehabilitation and referral services.

We also focus on strengthening parenting and community education initiatives to address harmful social norms that perpetuate child labour, while partnering with national and local governments to prevent violence, exploitation and abuse.

With the International Labour Organization (ILO), we help to collect data that make child labour visible to decision makers. These efforts complement our work to strengthen birth registration systems, ensuring that all children possess birth certificates that prove they are under the legal age to work.

Children removed from labour must also be safely returned to school or training. UNICEF supports increased access to quality education and provides comprehensive social services to keep children protected and with their families.

To address child trafficking, we work with United Nations partners and the European Union on initiatives that reach 13 countries across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Resources

90,000 The number of working children increased by 10 million |

June 12, 2018 Human rights

Uzbekistan recently adopted a law prohibiting child labor. This is a truly historic event, because for many years the UN has called on the country's authorities to end the involvement of children in the cotton harvest. So this is very good news. The bad news comes from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on the occasion of World Day against Child Labor: the number of child laborers has increased by 10 million over the past few years. Another 10 million children deprived of childhood. FAO spokeswoman Irina Utkina told Elena Vapnichnaya about the reasons for this state of affairs. nine0005

PS: For more than 10 years until around 2012, there was a steady downward trend in child labor in agriculture. And according to the latest estimates of the International Labor Organization, over the past 4-5 years, the number of children working in agriculture has increased by 10 million: from about 98 to 108 million. This is a very sharp jump. There are several reasons for this, of course. First of all, it is necessary to say about the increase in the number and intensity of conflicts, hostilities and more frequent natural disasters that occur as a result of climate change. People are forced to migrate, flee from wars, from conflicts, leave their lands, move to refugee camps, and in order for families to survive in these difficult new conditions, children have to work. Then, of course, in such conditions it is difficult to find a school so that they can get an education. The most dangerous sector in agriculture is probably the aquaculture sector: children often work at night, work on fishing boats. Very often these children die as a result of storms, they are exposed to high temperatures, they work day and night, they do not sleep. Here, probably, the main most dangerous areas in agriculture are work in the fields and fishing. nine0005

I also wanted to talk about the problems that refugees face - for example, in Syrian refugee households in Lebanon, children are actively involved in labor: they are engaged in areas such as garlic processing, working in greenhouses - also exposed to very high temperatures, working in the fields : Harvesting potatoes, beans and, of course, are very often exposed to many hazards and risks, including exposure to pesticides and poor sanitation in the field. And, of course, fatigue from doing physically demanding work for a long time. But again, this is not the only reason for the increase in child labor. The main reason is, of course, poverty in rural areas. Families are very dependent on child labour, this prevents children from getting an education and therefore deprives them of the opportunity to get decent jobs in the future. That is, it turns out such a vicious circle, and it turns out that in the future they can join the ranks of the poor and starving, and thus deprive them of a worthy future. nine0005

EB: Now, talking about poverty and the fact that children have to work so that families can survive. It is clear that in such conditions, parents, perhaps, would like to give their children the opportunity to learn and create a normal childhood for them. But there is simply no such possibility, and all conventions and international prohibitions do not work here. What to do in such a situation?

PS: In such a situation, FAO says that farming needs to be freed from child labor. We are trying to help families, firstly, to increase their income so that they still have the opportunity to send their children to school, and not to work, we are trying to improve the skills, especially of small farmers. It is necessary, of course, to provide them with access to resources and credits, especially for women, because they do a lot of work in agriculture. Sustainable farming measures need to be introduced to increase productivity so that fewer workers are needed to perform agricultural work in order to free children from this work. Again, reduce the use of pesticides and switch to conservation agriculture so that children are not exposed to these harmful chemicals. And of course, if we manage to increase the productivity of small farms, they will also become attractive for hiring labor, for hiring adults. nine0005

EB: As far as I know, international agreements do not ban all child labor. Which forms of child labor are acceptable and which are not?

PS: A line needs to be drawn here: of course, not all work involving children is considered child labour. Some activities can help a child learn important skills, such as a future livelihood and help provide food for families. For example, when children are involved in collecting small fruits or berries, such as grapes, blueberries, firstly, they can do it more deftly and efficiently than adults, and if they help adults, say, one hour a day, of course, such work cannot be considered child labour. According to our data, some schools even change their schedule during the harvest season. There is nothing to worry about and these cases should not be included in child labor statistics. Child labour, after all, is work that, firstly, is not suitable for children of a certain age, which adversely affects their education and may cause significant harm to their health, safety or morals. And some jobs are just life-threatening: as I said, the work of children in fishing, when they just die on these fishing boats when they go out to sea. That is, all these types of labor and risks should be excluded. nine0005

Child labor

90,000 Nearly 80 million children in the world are in hazardous work. Is the pandemic to blame?

What is child labor?

Surprisingly, not all work performed by children falls under the definition of child labour.

How many children are involved in child labour?

According to the UN, the number of working children and adolescents in the world fell by 94 million between 2000 and 2016. But since then, the process has stalled. The proportion of children involved in child labor as a share of the total number of children in the world over the past four years as a whole has not changed much. But in absolute terms, the indicator increased by about 9 million, to 160 million people by the beginning of 2020.

And the pandemic has done its bit. In the short term, it led to a decrease in the level of child labor, but only because the labor market basically sank. It lost four times as many jobs last year as it did during the 2009 financial crisis. year, the ILO found out.

But in the medium term - by the end of 2022 - the number of those involved in child labor risks growing by another 9 million people, UNICEF estimated.

Who are the working children?

In terms of gender, boys are more involved in child labor than girls at any age: 97 vs. 63 million.

But this is only if the definition of child labor does not take into account housework, which sometimes takes up to 21 hours a week. As soon as the concept is expanded and everyday tasks are taken into account in the calculations, the gender gap is halved. nine0005

The majority of working children are under 11: 89.3 out of 160 million people fall into this category. And it is precisely this number that is growing, while the employment of children aged 12–17, on the contrary, is declining.

In addition, working children often do not go to school - more than a third of them do not receive any education. And this, of course, limits their ability to find better-paid jobs in the future. Plus, the older the children, the more difficult it becomes for them to return to school. After all, families are increasingly dependent on the income they bring. nine0005

Where do most working children live?

More than half - almost 87 million - are in parts of Africa south of the Sahara, about 61 million more - in North Africa and the Asia-Pacific region (APR), the rest are scattered around the world.

At the same time, if in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and the Caribbean, progress has been made in recent years and there are fewer working children, then in the African region, the picture is completely different.

In the southern regions of the continent, population growth, regular crises, poverty and inadequate, according to UNICEF, social protection measures of local authorities, on the contrary, have led to the fact that the number of children involved in child labor has increased by 16.6 million over the past four years. nine0005

For example, about 40% of sub-Saharan Africa's population lives in extreme poverty. Although, according to the UN, this figure has been reduced recently.

Why do children have to go to work?

As early as early 2020, UNICEF and the ILO warned that the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis put many already vulnerable families at risk of losing income, forcing children to enter the labor market much more actively. And often they will be forced to accept the worst forms of child labor. nine0005

What do working children do?

Child labor is most common in rural areas. It is in agricultural production (agriculture and animal husbandry) that 70%, or about 112 million, of children are employed. Another 20% (31.4 million) work in the service sector, and 10% (16.5 million) in industry.

Most of the working children are employed on family farms and micro-enterprises - 72%. And this may turn out to be even more dangerous for them than working for an outside employer. Indeed, in the eyes of society, the family is traditionally considered a safe environment for the child. And this is not always the case.

Moreover, 79 out of 160 million work in dangerous conditions that directly threaten their lives and health.