the state of child labour today

THE STATE OF CHILD LABOUR TODAY

Child labour continues to decline, but only modestly 3% reduction in the four year period covered by the estimates. We have seen the largest reduction among children aged 5-14 where child labour fell by 10%. There are also fewer children in hazardous work, a proxy sometimes used for the worst forms of child labour. In fact, the more harmful the work and the more vulnerable the children involved, the faster the decline, especially for girls. This is welcome news. However, the battle is far from over: 215 million children are still caught in child labour and a staggering 115 million are exposed to hazardous work. In fact, most of the global decline in child labour has been due to the reduced numbers of girls involved. Alarmingly, there has been a 20 per cent increase in child labour in the 15-17 years age group – from 52 million to 62 million. The largest sector for child labour remains agriculture, where a large majority of children work as unpaid family members[1].

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[1] International Labour Organisation the state of child labour today <http://www.ilo.org/global/about_the_ilo/media_and_public_information/ feature _stories/lang--e>  accessed on 3-11-10