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The International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture statement on the impact of COVID-19 on child labour in agriculture











 FAO, IFAD, ILO & IUF. 2020. The International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture statement on the impact of COVID-19 on child labour in agriculture. Rome, FAO



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    COVID-19 and Child Labour in Agrifood Systems - GCP/GLO/1010/GER 2023
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    Child labour endangers the health and education of children and represents an obstacle to sustainable agricultural development and food security. Child labourers are likely to remain poor, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and hunger, and, in turn, hindering agricultural and rural development. Over recent decades, progress has been made , in particular in the sectors of industry and services. However, this progress has been significantly threatened by the COVID 19 crisis, particularly in the agriculture sector, which remained the one sector to have seen an increase in child labour . At their release, ILO UNICEF 2020 global estimates on child labour indicated that, without mitigation measures, the number of children in child labour could rise by the end of 2022 to 168.9 million. Although most child labour is found in the agriculture sector, the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on child labour in agrifood systems had yet to be adequately explored. It was therefore critical to document more precisely the characteristics and dynamics of the impact of the pandemic on child labour per region, with attention to the different subsectors of agriculture. The objective of the project was thus to inform future actions to end child labour in agrifood systems, assessing the similarities of the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic with other crises.
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    Booklet
    Will promotion of agricultural mechanization help prevent child labour?
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    2021
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    The FAO-IFPRI study, of which this policy brief is a summary, focuses on the use of tractors because they are among the most versatile farm mechanization tools and are universal power sources for all other driven implements and equipment in agriculture, with significant potential to replace animal draught power and human power, including children’s muscle power. Tractor use is typically also the first type of machine-powered equipment in use at lower levels of agricultural development, the context where most child labour is found. Mechanization is mostly assumed to reduce child labour, as it is expected to be labour saving in general. Yet, this is not always the case, as it has also been observed that the use of tractors and other machinery could increase children’s engagement in farm activities. This may be the case if, for instance, their use allows farms to cultivate larger areas, or if it leads to shifting chores of work from hired labor to family workers, e.g. for weeding edges of farmland not reachable by machinery. Evidence has been scant thus far, but the few available studies have mostly lent greater support to the hypothesis that mechanization reduces children’s productive engagement. Most available studies have focused on specific cases and based on scant data. The new FAO-IFPRI study provides a rigorous quantitative assessment for seven developing countries in Asia (India, Nepal and Viet Nam) and sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania) based on comparable farm household survey data.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Agricultural mechanization and child labour in developing countries
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    The FAO-IFPRI study, focuses on the use of tractors because they are among the most versatile farm mechanization tools and are universal power sources for all other driven implements and equipment in agriculture, with significant potential to replace animal draught power and human power, including children’s muscle power. Tractor use is typically also the first type of machine-powered equipment in use at lower levels of agricultural development, the context where most child labour is found. Mechanization is mostly assumed to reduce child labour, as it is expected to be labour saving in general. Yet, this is not always the case, as it has also been observed that the use of tractors and other machinery could increase children’s engagement in farm activities. This may be the case if, for instance, their use allows farms to cultivate larger areas, or if it leads to shifting chores of work from hired labor to family workers, e.g. for weeding edges of farmland not reachable by machinery. Evidence has been scant thus far, but the few available studies have mostly lent greater support to the hypothesis that mechanization reduces children’s productive engagement. Most available studies have focused on specific cases and based on scant data. The new FAO-IFPRI study provides a rigorous quantitative assessment for seven developing countries in Asia (India, Nepal and Viet Nam) and sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania) based on comparable farm household survey data.

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