According to the United States Department of Labor, 168 million children around the world are forced to work, with the loss of educational opportunities and free time that this implies.
This figure coincides with the International Labor Organization, an organization that - although we find it a shameful amount - ensures that since 2000 and until October 2013, the number has fallen by one third.
ILO: Child labor is all work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is detrimental to their physical and psychological development. It refers to work performed by children below the legal minimum age for admission of employment, according to the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138), as well as the worst forms of child labor defined in the Worst Convention forms of child labor, 1999 (No. 182)
Those 168 million are 10 percent of children who live in the world, and if they seem many (many, right?); I have to tell you that 85 million of the total who work do it in dangerous jobs.
Child labor in figures
- The largest absolute number of working children is found in the Asia-Pacific region, (almost 78 million), but sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region with the highest incidence of child labor in terms of percentage of the population: 21%.
The countries that top the list of "no progress" in child labor practices include the British Virgin Islands, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Cook Islands, Eritrea, Falkland Islands, Montserrat and Norfolk Island
The incidence of child labor is highest in the poorest countries, but middle-income countries have the largest number of working children.
Child labor among girls decreased by 40% since 2000, compared with a 25% decrease in the case of boys.
Agriculture remains by far the sector in which there are more working children (98 million children - 59% -), but the problem is not negligible in the services sector (54 million) and industry (12 million), for the most part in the informal economy.
The report that I mentioned at the beginning is a reminder of how children (and also adults) with exploited around the world, in places where the labor force is not even sold, but rather “given away”.
AdvertisingAnd yet we can celebrate the decrease in child labor, although according to the ILO nobody can claim credit for this result, since many entities have hindered to achieve the objective.
