Over 152 million children are working as child labour across the world, with concentration mainly in Africa, Asian and the Pacific, according to International Labour Organisation.
ILO announced last week that though there was a 38 per cent drop in child labour cases in the world, the economic condition in the world, due to the COVID 19 pandemic is likely to increase child labour across the globe.
ILO has declared 2021 as International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, yet the financial condition of millions of families is likely to force children into labour. Children are mostly employed in agriculture, subsistence and commercial farming as well as livestock herding, according to ILO’s report. Seventy per cent of the child labour is involved in such activities.
The Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations had called upon member countries to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and at the same time ensure the prohibition and elimination use of children as labourers and as soldiers.