Child Labor

160 million children, almost 1 in 10 worldwide, are engaged in child labor, with 80 million working in hazardous conditions in agriculture, mining, domestic labor, and other sectors. On tobacco farms, children work long hours in extreme heat, exposed to nicotine and toxic pesticides that can make them sick. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, child laborers in artisanal and small-scale gold mines work underground in pits that easily collapse and use toxic mercury to process the gold, risking brain damage and other serious health conditions. We are working to end the worst forms of child labor and to ensure that all children are protected from jobs that interfere with their health, safety, and education.

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Over the last two decades, countries have made remarkable progress reducing child labor. Since 2000, the number of children in child labor has dropped by 94 million. 

In many countries, governments provided families with cash allowances, so that they could meet their needs without sending their children to work. 

But the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is reversing that progress.

Families have lost jobs and income, and schools have closed.

In countries like Nepal, Ghana, and Uganda, children have gone to work to help their families put food on the table.

Many work long, grueling hours for very little pay, if they are paid at all.

Some work under hazardous conditions, handling toxic mercury to process gold, or suffer injuries from working with dangerous tools.

Once working, many children will never return to school.

But child labor is not inevitable.

Before the pandemic, cash allowances for families helped many countries reduce poverty and child labor rates.

Now, governments should expand cash allowances to help support families hit hard by the pandemic, and to protect children’s rights to an adequate standard of living, to education, and to protection from child labor.

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