The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and International Labor Organization (ILO) said that there are now 138 million child laborers, below the estimated 160 million in 2020. Joint report The World Day was released against Child Labor to mark Thursday.
This drop represents good news for child welfare, in 2000, ILO estimated that 245.5 million children were working. About 50% of the decree is specificly promising as the number of children has increased by 230 million in the same period.
The number of children, which ILO’s definition is engaged in “dangerous work” as children from 5 to 17-year, the highest in mining, reduced to 204 million in 204 million in industrial or agricultural sectors.
However, ILO says that even the optimistic estimates project will be completely abolished for decades.
Challenges remain across Africa
About 86.6 million child laborers-two-thirds of all child laborers are in sub-Sahara Africa.
Nanakali Maqsood, Regional Advisor for Child Protection UNICEFTold DW: “In terms of the circulation rate, it has reduced. So we have gone from 24% to 22% between 2020 and 2024. But the challenge we challenge in this region is a rapid population growth.
Especially for Maqsud is that young children (ages of 5 to 11 years) make the largest part of child laborers.
“We are not addressing adequate poverty seriously in domestic levels, especially in rural areas. As long as we do not have the right politics and financing to lift those houses, we will not address the child laboratory,” he told DW.
Additionally, Maqsood believes that regional efforts to increase access to quality education – through the construction of schools and encourages parents to send children to school – they should be given priority, as well as strong enforcement of laws to punish labor practices.
The recommendations include more stringent labor inspections in high -risk areas such as mining and agriculture, and the accountability of the supply chain has been improved.
Maqsud told DW, “There are laws in most of our countries,” given that the enforcement of those laws is weak. “Ministries responsible for issues like child labor, most of the time, have the smallest budget lines.”
Lisa Zimraman, head of UNICEF Country Office at Madagascar, said 47% of children from 5- to 17 years are affected by child labor compared to other parts of Sahara Africa.
“Child labor affects boys a little more than girls. It affects children in villagers than those in the urban area, and it affects children from normal families,” Nimmanman told DW, “32% of all children in Madagascar are working in dangerous conditions, this is what is the worst form of child laboratory.”
Climate change brings more sorrow to child laborers
Many climate related problems, from the drawvuts to the cyclone, are plagued by agriculture on the basis of Madagascan.
“Climate shocks push families and children into more dangerous forms of labor, new forms of labor and more dangerous forms of labor,” Zimarman told DW.
Some rural communities in the South -Western Madagascar have moved to Mica mining along with agricultural practices.
Madagascar Russia and India, after India, is the third largest exporter in Mica, and in recent years the field has risen because minerals are used in renewable energy sector.
“It is then mostly children who have to climb the mines to support their families and be enough to eat,” Jimraman said.
Micah mining is often included in the thesis communities, from elders to young children. He told the United Nations researchers that if their family members do not work, they cannot take the risk of eating.
Duration of child labor
While ILO defines child labor as a work that deprives children from childhood, dignity, potential and development, in relation to schooling, Africa communities have their own understanding of forming a child, and when necessary.
Lidi Ose, a resurrection of Ghana University, has observed the trends of Ghana within the society.
“Child labor is a big problem, except that we did not make conscious efforts to deal with people,” he told DW.
In particular, there is child labor in mining, agriculture and homework under investigation in West Africa. In Ghana, there is reports of child labor in cocoa farming and informal mining.
“I think any parents to tamper with a child under 8 years of age, to hurt and hurt, but because the tradition allows the child to help the child’s maintenance, they take their children to artisan mining sites,” Osi told DW.
Often, employers of mining sites participate in child labor by allowing children to work with their parents, give young children jobs in sorting, or climb in apis that cannot reach adults.
“Usually, young people do not get physical cash as payment. They get some rocks or ore as payment,” Osi told DW. “But because younger workers are usually able to classify something, they do not see it as exploitation. And that is why the relationship is going on.”
Like other communities, children’s influence becomes clear only in long periods in a short period of time to go to school and enter the job market. For this reason, ILO and UNICEF say that governments in Sub-Sahara Africa need to introduce strategies that break the cycle of child labor.
‘trying to survive’
Despite disappointment not to eliminate child labor by 2025Maqsud reported that DW progress is legally introduced by the legal structure to prevent the child laboratory, and an continent in education opportunities, uniquely for girls. Maqsood says that economies grow in sub-city Africa, it increases the Chanaks that all communities will get better opportunities.
Maqsud said, “The families are trying to survive and they do not like because they are not bad people, but because they are trying to survive. And if we give them a way, perhaps it would not be a solution to ask their children to work,” Maqsud told DW.
Edited by: Keith Walker
