Even though there were almost a hundred million less working children reported in 2016 compared to 2000, one-in-ten children still suffer in illegal child labour. Africa is in the first place, counting around 72 million child labourers, followed by the Pacific and Asia with 62 million working children. About 70% of these children are forced to work in agriculture and similar dangerous circumstances, the International Labour Organization (ILO) says.
Due to school closures during the pandemic, the number of children on the labour market has risen even more to supplement the family income. To draw attention to this phenomenon and eradicate it, ILO partnered up with the Alliance 8.7 global partnership and launched the “International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour”.
Their purpose is to urge governments to achieve Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals so that they can eliminate all the existing child labour forms by 2025, plus human trafficking and modern slavery by 2030, which will be discussed at the fifth Global Conference on Child Labour in 2022.