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	168 million children are engaged in child labour globally by Unicef, ILO, Education International, agencies   June 2016   All over the world, children are being exploited through physically dangerous work. Child labour is work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity. It’s dangerous work that exceeds reasonable hours and interferes with a child’s education.   Child labourers are vulnerable to abuse, and their families can be often trapped in a cycle of poverty. In extreme cases, children are forced to work under threat of violence or even death. Children can fall ill or get injured — with injuries as severe as the loss of limbs.   Child labour interferes with schooling and long-term development—with the worst forms including: slavery, trafficking, sexual exploitation and hazardous work that puts children at risk of death, injury or disease.   Child labour (UNICEF)   Millions of children around the world are trapped in child labour, depriving them of their childhood, their health and education, and condemning them to a life of poverty and want. Of course, there is work that children do to help their families in ways that are neither harmful nor exploitative. But too many children, are stuck in unacceptable work for children – a serious violation of their rights.   Recent global estimates based on data of UNICEF, the ILO and the World Bank indicate that 168 million children aged 5 to 17 are engaged in child labour. Some 120 million among them are below the age of 14, while a further 30 million children in this age group – mostly girls – perform unpaid household chores within their own families. In addition, millions of children suffer in the other worst forms of child labour, including slavery and slavery-like practices such as forced and bonded labour and child soldiering, sexual exploitation, or are used by adults in illicit activities.   Despite a steady decline in child labour, progress is far too slow. At current rates, more than 100 million children will still be trapped in child labour by 2020. The continuing persistence of child labour poses a threat to national economies and has severe negative short and long term consequences for the fulfillment of children’s rights guaranteed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) – including denial of education and frequent exposure to violence.   Child labour spans various sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, quarrying and mining, and domestic service. Often, it is hidden from the public eye. For example, the estimated 15.5 million child domestic workers worldwide – mostly girls – are often hardly visible and face many hazards. Child labour is the combined product of many factors, such as poverty, social norms condoning it, lack of decent work opportunities for adults and adolescents, migration, and emergencies.   Child labour reinforces intergenerational cycles of poverty, undermines national economies and impedes achieving progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. It is not only a cause, but also a consequence of social inequities reinforced by discrimination. Children from indigenous groups or lower castes are more likely to drop out of school to work. Migrant children are also vulnerable to hidden and illicit labour.   Child labour is preventable, not inevitable.   In various countries and regions, UNICEF and partners work to strengthen child protection systems, through a more comprehensive response to children’s issues, resulting in decreased child labour and an overall improvement of children’s well-being.   • In Burkina Faso, UNICEF, in partnership with government and civil society partners, developed a project to provide children working in artisanal gold mines with a comprehensive package of social resources and service. The package included support for schooling, vocational training, and literacy in their communities, accompanied by income generating activities for mothers. The project has contributed to more than 15,000 child workers leaving the artisanal mines.   • In Nepal, UNICEF collaborates with local government to develop district and municipality plans for eliminating child labour. As a result, more than 9,000 children, who had been in child labour and without family care, were provided with goods and services for their successful rehabilitation and reintegration services (including shelter, food, clothes, medical assistance, counselling, mediation with parents and employers, and legal support) and reunited with their families. After family reunification, children were given education support or vocational training, and families were offered help to increase their family income to reduce the risk of the child returning to labour.   • In Bolivia, UNICEF strengthened links between different levels of government and provided advice during the drafting of legislation to establish a minimum age for employment and protection for adolescent workers.   UNICEF works with employers and the private sector to assess and address the impact of their supply chain and business practices upon children, promoting programmes that contribute to the elimination of child labour through sustainable solutions to address its root causes. UNICEF partners with civil society organizations calling on all stakeholders to end child labour.   World Day against Child Labour 2016 (International Labour Organization)   End child labour in supply chains: It’s everyone’s business. By acting together, it is within our means to make the future of work a future without child labour," says ILO Director-General Guy Ryder on the occasion of World Day against Child Labour.   "That Child labour has no place in well-functioning and well-regulated markets is evident. But the reality is that today, child labour remains widespread in global supply chains.   It is unacceptable that there are still 168 million children in child labour, 85 million of whom are in hazardous work. Child labour is found in agriculture – 99 million – to mining, from manufacturing to tourism, producing goods and services consumed by millions every day.   Child labour often occurs in the rural and informal economies, often beyond the reach of labour inspection, the protection of workers’ organizations or governance organizations.   It’s not just the lack of institutional protection in the rural and informal economies that increases the risk of child labour in supply chains; in household production and on family farms, children are often highly vulnerable because parents incomes are insufficient or because small family enterprises and farms cannot afford to replace child labour by hiring adults due to poverty.   Unit rate production also increases the risk with child labourers helping parents to make up required quotas to assure family survival when parents are not earning a living wage.   Child labourers are also found in supply chains producing for local and national consumption and they must not be ignored.   The ILO’s Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) has been ratified by 168 member States and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) by 180 – near universal ratification.   Governments now recognize that the fight against child labour requires coherent policy to back child labour legislation: quality education, social protection and decent jobs for vulnerable parents.   Companies have real responsibilities to eliminate child labour throughout their supply chains. A task requiring partnerships involving governments, industry peers, employers and workers organizations.   Global Framework Agreements between global trade union federations and multinational companies are an expression of the required global cooperation involving multi-faceted dialogue. At the grassroots of value chains too, rural workers and informal workers organizations seek to strengthen collective representation.   The ILO’s Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy of 1977 recognizes the role of enterprises in the elimination of child labour. The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda reaffirms the goal of ending all child labour. Acting together, it is within our means to make the future of work a future without child labour.   2016 World Day Against Child Labour - Education International   A staggering 168 million children are engaged in child labour globally. This means that all economic activity, from agriculture to manufacturing, from services to construction, may involve child labour at some point in the process.   This is why employers, with unions and labour inspection, must be vigilant to ensure that supply chains are free from child labour. While most child labour occurs in production for domestic markets, children can also be found working in the production of goods and services for export.   The focus of the 2016 World Day Against Child Labour is on child labour and supply chains. According to the International Labour Organisation, child labour occurs largely in the rural and informal economy, in areas where trade unions and employers’ organisations are often weak or absent. Inadequate education systems also heighten the risk of child labour being used, so governments must step up their efforts to provide free quality public education for all.   Education International (EI) sponsors initiatives with the Governments of Mali and Uganda to improve the training of teachers to increase the quality of education, thereby preventing school drop out and child labour. EI capacity building programmes in Nicaragua and Zimbabwe are also successful in training teachers to become agents of change. Dozens of child labourers have already returned to schools in those countries.   Education International (EI) General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, says that “EI is also very concerned with the increasing number of refugee children being subjected to child labour, prostitution, or early marriage in host countries, like Lebanon, Jordan, or Turkey.” He notes that, due to migration, conflicts and crises, tens of thousands of children, including refugee children, are deprived of quality education. Many of them are forced to engage in child labour activities to survive.   Highlighting the 2013 UN Brasilia Declaration on Child Labour, he stressed the need to promote free, compulsory and quality education for all children; and the progressive universalisation of social protection.   “Eradicating child labour, as well as ensuring quality education and decent work for adults, are key objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in September 2015, especially SDG 4 on ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all”.   As child labour not only deprives children of their right to education and protection from exploitation, but also has broader consequences for national development, its complete eradication constitutes an important issue for development and human rights, he says.   Mr. Van Leeuwen said that donor governments have stopped contributing financially to education through development aid or have drastically reduced their contribution despite pledges. Therefore, Education International is calling on the Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunities to ensure that all children in the world are in school and learning. This must be achieved by earmarking US$39 billion per year between 2015 and 2030, the sum recommended by UNESCO to achieve sustainable funding for global education. The Commission will make recommendations to the UN Secretary-General in September 2016.   http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_child_labour.html http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/wdacl/lang--en/index.htm http://www.globalmarch.org/ http://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-labor http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/child_slavery/default.aspx http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/news_details/3993 http://www.ituc-csi.org/end-child-labour-in-global-supply http://www.ilo.org/ipec/news/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/child-labour/lang--en/index.htm http://tmsnrt.rs/28RwtVd
	Worsening economies threaten to undo gains against poverty by International Labour Organization, agencies   19 May 2016   Worsening economic conditions in Asia, Latin America and the Arab world threaten to undo decades of progress in reducing global poverty, according to a report by the International Labour Organization. What’s more, relative poverty in developed countries is increasing.   The UN agency said a third of workers earn less than the “moderate poverty threshold” of $3.10 a day and their prospects are deteriorating as global trade slows and low oil prices affect producers in developing countries.   Research for the ILO’s world employment social utlook (Weso) report for 2016 found that almost 2.5 billion people remain in poverty across the world, despite efforts to increase the number of jobs and raise the incomes of low-paid workers.   The agency said eliminating poverty by raising incomes to a minimum $3.10 a day worldwide would cost $600bn a year, which would only be possible through a mix of higher-grade jobs and transfers from the better off through taxes to pay for healthcare, education and welfare benefits.   It argued that without investment in more skilled jobs and better social protection, the bottom 30% of earners would continue to work precarious jobs without basic social protections such as healthcare and welfare benefits, and claim less than 2% of the world’s income.   In its first social outlook report last year, the ILO, which monitors global employment trends, said only a quarter of workers have found stable employment, with the rest on temporary or short-term contracts, in informal jobs – often without any contract – or in unpaid family jobs.   It is estimated that almost a third of the extremely or moderately poor in developing economies have jobs. However, their employment is vulnerable in nature: they are sometimes unpaid, concentrated in low-skilled occupations and, in the absence of social protection, rely almost exclusively on labour income. Among developed countries, more workers have wage and salaried employment, but that does not stop them from falling into poverty.   The 2016 report, which is mostly based on figures up to 2012, said: “A significant proportion of those who moved out of poverty continue to live on just a few dollars per day, often with limited access to essential services and social protection, which would allow them to exit precarious living conditions on a more permanent basis. Also, in those developed countries where quality jobs are scarce, there is growing anxiety among middle-class families about their ability to sustain their income position.   “Similarly, the recent deterioration of economic prospects in Asia, Latin America, the Arab region, and those countries rich in natural resources, has begun to expose the fragility of the recent employment and social advances.   “Already, in a number of these countries, income inequality has begun to rise after being in decline for decades, and thus a reversal of some of the progress made to date in tackling poverty is not inconceivable. Likewise, latest trends suggest a further escalation in relative poverty levels in Europe and other developed countries.”   In a report last year, the UN warned that slowing economic growth since 2008 was reversing decades of improving employment levels, with young people having borne the brunt of the financial crisis. In 2015, the number of unemployed people was 28 million higher than it had been in 2007, and an estimated 39 million people had dropped out of the labour market.   The ILO director general, Guy Ryder, said: “Clearly, the sustainable development goal of ending poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030 is at risk. If we are serious about the 2030 agenda and want to finally put an end to the scourge of poverty perpetuating across generations, then we must focus on the quality of jobs in all nations.”   The report concludes that the problem of persistent poverty cannot be solved by income transfers alone; more and better jobs are crucial to achieving this goal.   “Right now, while 30 per cent of the world is poor, they only hold 2 per cent of the world’s income,” said Raymond Torres, ILO Special Advisor on Social and Economic Issues. “Only through deliberately improving the quality of employment for those who have jobs and creating new decent work will we provide a durable exit from precarious living conditions and improve livelihoods for the working poor and their families.”   The study also finds that high levels of income inequality reduce the impact of economic growth on poverty reduction. “This finding tells us that it is past time to reflect on the responsibility of rich nations and individuals in the perpetuation of poverty. Accepting the status quo is not an option,” says Torres.   Poverty reduction across sectors within countries has also been uneven. Using the latest data, estimates based on 43 emerging and developing countries show that a quarter of those employed in agriculture were in extreme poverty (nearly two-thirds of all the working extreme poor), compared with just 12 per cent of those employed in industry, and only 7 per cent of those employed in services.   Increases in relative poverty across Europe had restricted the ability of less well off workers to better themselves and their families, threatening social cohesion, the ILO said.   Weso 2016 found that the incidence of relative poverty had increased by one percentage point in the EU since the financial crisis, while remaining flat in the US. The report estimates that in 2012, more than 300 million people in developed countries were living in poverty, where their earnings represented less than 60% of median incomes.   http://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/weso/2016-transforming-jobs/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/weso/2016-transforming-jobs/WCMS_480792/lang--en/index.htm Visit the related web page
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