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Child Labour

Fact Sheet

The Facts

An estimated 246 million children are engaged in child labour. Almost three-quarters (171 million) of these children work in hazardous conditions - including working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations.

The vast majority of child labourers - 70 per cent or more - work in the agriculture sector .

Millions of girls work as domestic servants and unpaid household help and are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

An estimated 8.4 million children work under horrific circumstances. These children are - trafficked (1.2 million), forced into debt bondage or other forms of slavery (5.7 million ), into prostitution and pornography (1.8 million) and child soldiers in armed conflict (300,000).

According to global estimates from the ILO (2002 study) :

• An estimated 186 million children below the age of 15 were engaged in child labour in 2000;
• An estimated 110 million child labourers were below the age of 12;
  
• Among the wider age group of 5-17 years old, there were approximately 246 million children involved in child labour.
  
• Of the 246 million children, two thirds of them (171 million) were estimated to work in hazardous situations and conditions.
  
• An estimated 8.4 million children are involved in other worst forms of child labour including trafficking (1.2 million); forced and bonded labour (5.7 million); armed conflict (0.3 million); prostitution and pornography (1.8 million); and illicit activities (0.6 million).
  
  The formal/export sector accounts for only around 5 per cent of all child labour. The vast majority of children – 70 per cent or more – work in agriculture.

Regional estimates indicate:

• The Asia/Pacific region harbours the largest number of child workers in the 5-14 age group, 127.3 million in total. (19 per cent of children are working in the region.)
• Sub Saharan Africa has an estimated 48 million child workers. The region has almost one child in three (29 per cent) below the age of 15 economically active,
  
• Latin America and the Caribbean harbours approximately 17.4 million child workers. (16 per cent of children are working in the region.)
  
• Fifteen per cent of children are working in the Middle East and North Africa.
  
• Approximately 2.5 million children are working in developed and transition economies.

What we want the world to do: build a protective environment for children

Education services need to be in place which are free, compulsory, relevant and attractive. All children have the right to education. Children and parents need to see school as a better option than work.

Governments need to ensure that all children have access to compulsory education as a front-line response to child labour. They need to commit themselves to international standards like ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, which is ratified by 132 governments. They need to make sure that laws are in place to prosecute employers who exploit children.

Resources for this struggle are available. Child labour needs to be at the top of the agenda of finance ministries, as well as those of the traditional social ministries associated with children's welfare. Developing countries can demonstrate the seriousness of their commitment by allocating more resources to basic social services.

Attitudes and practices need to change. Too often there is little objection by families and communities to children working. Frequently it is felt that work is a better and more appropriate activity for girls than going to school. In the case of forced and bonded labour, there may be a misunderstanding of the nature of the agreement that leads to the child being bound to his or her employer. The willingness of landowners and employers to exploit children in such arrangements, and the lack of social disapproval of employers who operate in this way, also fail to provide protection for children.

Laws need to be in place that prohibit child labour. More importantly, they need to be rigorously enforced.

Governments and others need to know how many children are working in the various forms of labour. They also need information on the gender, age and ethnicity of the children to understand what made them vulnerable and to devise effective responses.

Children need to be removed immediately from the worst forms of child labour and provided with care and education.

Children's views need to be taken into account in programmes aimed at helping child labourers. If children are going to be provided with real alternatives to hazardous labour it is essential to make them active partners in identifying these alternatives.

Donor nations can show their commitment by increasing the proportion of their assistance allocated to fund basic social services and by supporting debt forgiveness.

Definitions

Child work: UNICEF is not opposed to children working. Children's or adolescents' participation in work - economic activity- that does not negatively affect their health and development or interfere with education, is often positive. Light work (that does not interfere with education) is permitted from the age of 12 years under ILO Convention 138.

Child labour: Child labour is a much narrower concept and refers to children working in contravention of ILO standards in Convention 138 and 182. This means all children below 12 years working in any economic activities, those aged 12-14 years engaged in more than light work, and all children engaged in the worst forms of child labour.

Worst forms of child labour: These involve children being enslaved, forcibly recruited, prostituted, trafficked, forced into illegal activities and exposed to hazardous work.

Relevant article of the CRC

States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

Article 32(1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Read the CRC and the Millenium Development goals