ILO launches report on child labour

Despite significant progress in efforts to abolish child labour, an alarming number of children are trapped in its worst forms, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has said.

Launching ILO's report - 'A Future Without Child Labour', the organisation's Director-General, Juan Somavia, said on Wednesday that child labour remained a problem on a massive scale, despite the increasing commitment by governments and their partners to combat it.

"While there has been significant progress towards the effective abolition of child labour, the international community still faces a major uphill struggle against this stubbornly pervasive form of work that takes a tragic toll on millions of children around the world," he said.

The report found that 246 million children - one in every six aged between 5 and 17 - were involved in child labour. It also said that one in every eight children in the world - some 179 million children aged 5-17 - were still exposed to the worst forms of child labour which endangered their physical, mental or moral well-being.

About 111 million children under age 15, who were doing hazardous work should be "immediately withdrawn from this work", the report said, noting that an additional 59 million youths aged 15-17 should receive urgent and immediate protection from hazards at work, or be withdrawn from such work.

Some 8.4 million children are caught in "unconditional" worst forms of child labour including slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities, it said.

"That so many children should be forced to work - and endure the hardship and abuse that so often comes with it - is more than simply unacceptable," United Nations Children's Fund Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, said in a statement on Wednesday, marking the first World Child Labour Day.

Meanwhile, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that 170 million children around the world work in agriculture, making up 70 percent of all child labourers. Such children spent long hours in scorching heat, were exposed to toxic pesticides, and suffered high rates of injury.

"Children working in agriculture far outnumber the kids weaving carpets and stitching soccer balls, who get most of the media attention," Jo Becker, children's rights advocacy director for HRW said in a statement on Wednesday.

The ILO Global Report on Child Labour is posted at:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/decl/publ/reports/report3.htm

The HRW statement is available at: http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/06/ilo0611.htm