ILOAccording to the International Labour Organization (ILO), more than 200 million children in the world today are involved in child labour, doing work that is damaging to their mental, physical and emotional development. Children work because their survival and that of their families depend on it. Child labour persists even where it has been declared illegal, and is frequently surrounded by a wall of silence, indifference, and apathy. But that wall is beginning to crumble. While the total elimination of child labour is a long-term goal in many countries, certain forms of child labour must be confronted immediately. Nearly three-quarters of working children are engaged in the worst forms of child labour, including trafficking, armed conflict, slavery, sexual exploitation and hazardous work. The effective abolition of child labour is one of the most urgent challenges of our time.  A recent ILO study has shown that eliminating child labour in transition and developing economies could generate economic benefits nearly seven times greater than the costs, mostly associated with investment in better schooling and social services.

 

On the other hand, at least 12.3 million people around the world are trapped in forced labour. The ILO works to combat the practice and the conditions that give rise to it. Forced labour takes different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. The victims are the most vulnerable - women and girls forced into prostitution, migrants trapped in debt bondage, and sweatshop or farm workers kept there by clearly illegal tactics and paid little or nothing. The ILO has worked since its inception to tackle forced labour and the conditions that give rise to it and has established a Special Action Programme on Forced Labour to intensify this effort.

 

The Department of Communication and Public Information of the ILO has created playlists on its YouTube Channel dedicated to:

  • Child Labour, click here
  • Forced labour, click here
  • Decent Work, click here
  • Women at Work, click here

Contact Lorena Peña, Dept. of Communication and Public Information International Labour Organization, for further information: g7dcomm@ilo.org