Call for action: ending child labour in agriculture with the help of agricultural stakeholders
2021 is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, in light of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 8.7 that seeks to eliminate all forms of child labour by 2025.
152 million boys and girls are still trapped in child labour worldwide, and 71% or 108 million of them are working in agriculture.[1] The impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on agri-food systems is exacerbating rural poverty and leading to an increase in child poverty, school dropout and food insecurity.[2] [3] Children are being increasingly involved in working activities to compensate labour gaps and income losses in food and agricultural production.[4] This situation is likely to reverse progress and undermine efforts to eradicate rural poverty (SDG 1), achieve zero hunger (SDG 2), and eliminate child labour (SDG 8.7).
The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, pledges to intensify efforts for ending child labour in agriculture: ‘'This year, we will step-up our efforts to strengthen the capacities of a wide range of agricultural actors to include child labour prevention and youth employment in their work''.[5]
In 2020, FAO released the FAO Framework to Eliminate Child Labour in Agriculture[6] to support and upscale action of agricultural stakeholders[7] in the elimination of child labour in agriculture. Moreover, FAO launched an online consultation on the Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition: “How can agricultural policies and strategies help to end child labour in agriculture?”.[8] Practitioners from 41 countries shared 90 contributions, highlighting diverse issues of child labour in agriculture, and lessons learned and good practices from agricultural stakeholders. The consultation showed the importance of taking a multisectoral approach to eliminate child labour in agriculture through school feeding programmes, adequate resource management, women’s empowerment, cash transfers and digitalization, among others. Building on these findings and FAO’s Framework, this Call for Action is another step towards FAO’s contribution to the International Year.
This Call for Action aims to capture and recognise the commitment, responsibility, and efforts of agricultural stakeholders in addressing child labour in agriculture, and to build momentum towards more concerted action at local, national and global level. It will give agricultural stakeholders the opportunity to indicate what actions they or their organizations could take to increase action towards the elimination of child labour in agriculture and what recommendations they would provide to agricultural and other stakeholders. The Call intends to give voice to a wide range of agricultural stakeholders and to highlight especially the situation and dynamics at the very local level in rural communities.
The ideas for action received will feed into the FAO regional consultations for the International Year to be held in September, and the FAO high-level Global Event on Ending Child Labour in Agriculture on 2-3 November 2021. They will also inform the design of specific child labour large-scale programmes, projects and investments at country-level focusing on the different sub-sectors of agriculture and food systems at large.
The most impactful, innovative and relevant contributions to this Call for Action, and those submitted for the consultation held in 2020, will be showcased at the Global Event and participants will be invited to present them.
Please use the submission form to share your contribution. You can upload the completed form below or send it to [email protected].
Submissions are welcome in all six UN languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese). The call is open until 14 June 2021.
Thank you very much for your valuable contribution.
Bernd Seiffert
Decent Rural Employment Officer, Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equity Division, FAO
[1] ILO, 2017. Global estimates of child labour. Available in English, French and Spanish.
[2] UN, 2020. Policy brief: the impact of COVID-19 on children. Available in English.
[3] World Bank. 2021. Food security and COVID-19. Available in English.
[4] ILO and UNICEF. COVID-19 and child labour: a time of crisis, a time to act. Available in English, French and Spanish.
[5] The virtual event launch of the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour 2021 organized by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
[6] FAO Framework for the Elimination of Child Labour in Agriculture (2020), available in Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
[7] Agricultural stakeholders: agricultural-line ministries, research institutions, employer and producer organizations, farmer organizations, private sector, youth organizations, development banks, etc.
[8] FSN Forum Consultation summary available online in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish.
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- Read 63 contributions
Dear Sir or Mme,
Kindly, find attached the submission form for the call for action-child labor in agriculture.
Best regards,
Haidar Lakkis
Dear FAO colleagues,
Greetings from Vehari, Pakistan
Please find attached the FIDA contribution to the Call for action “ending child labor in agriculture with the help of agricultural stakeholders” by FAO. It was a very interesting and learning opportunity for us.
Wonderful FAO!
Regards,
Abdul Rasheed Abbasi
Farmers’ Integrated Development Association (FIDA), Pakistan
Le travail des enfants dans l’agriculture et son impact sanitaire sur ces derniers dans la Province du Haut – Katanga.
Estimados colegas buenos días, adjunto la propuesta de llamado a la acción para acabar con el trabajo infantil en la agricultura por parte de FAO Guatemala.
Quedo atento a cualquier observación al formulario.
Saludos cordiales,
José Hernández
Ms. Uzooba Hureem
Pakistan is predominantly characterized by small agricultural landholdings, where farmers are dependent on hired labourers or pooling labourers, as opposed to mechanized agriculture. More often than not, small farm operations are carried out with the help of the family unit instead of hiring agriculture labour from outside (who have to be paid). Thus, the small farm owner or landless farmer (sharecropper/tenant) mostly depends on his/her family to save labour costs and increase profits. The whole family, including children, contribute to this enterprise for their livelihood and income. Limited income/poverty leads households to be economically dependent on child work/labour for their livelihoods and food security.
Children (irrespective of attending school or not) are engaged in farm work with their parents who are either small landowners, share-croppers or tenants. They start helping their parents from an early age in all domestic and farm chores especially at harvest time when adults are busier. However, this work is assigned according to capacity consideration by the parents. Moreover, parents/adults work in hazardous working conditions due to lack of safety measures adopted for pesticide spray. Children are not involved in this but are exposed to it, because of their involvement in other farm work.
Je vous envoie ci joint ma contribution dans le cadre de l'appel à l'action : Mettre un terme au travail des enfants dans l'agriculture avec l'aide des parties prenantes du secteur agricole.
Everyone has a role to play in ending child labour in agriculture. This includes different ministries in charge of agriculture and rural development, labour and health, agricultural extension workers, pesticide control boards, researchers, producers’ organizations, farmers, etc.
Child labour is defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and/or interferes with their schooling. Hazardous child labour is work that is performed by children in dangerous and unhealthy conditions. Children below the age of 18 years must be protected from hazardous work. Handling and using pesticides is considered hazardous work and is not allowed below the age of 18. Children are particularly vulnerable and can be exposed to hazardous pesticides directly and indirectly.
The FAO Secretariat of the Rotterdam Convention and the Child Labour in Agriculture Prevention team within the Decent Rural Employment team in ESP have established a long-term collaboration. Different approaches have been carried out in addressing hazardous child labour in agriculture and reduce the risks of pesticides at institutional and field level: a) by supporting knowledge generation, capacity development as well as livelihood enhancement schemes to allow families to be less economically dependent on the labour of their children and prioritize education and safe, age-appropriate tasks; b) by raising awareness among various stakeholders on the issue; c) by collecting data on pesticide poisoning and improving the legal framework on pesticide management.
Two publications on occupational safety and health, child labour reduction and pesticide exposure were published in March 2021 providing an array of information, useful tools and case studies:
- The technical note for agricultural stakeholders “Addressing hazardous child labour and reducing risks posed by hazardous pesticides”
- The Information note and call for action “Eliminating hazardous child labour through safe and sustainable farming practices”
World Vision - Promoting the right to decent work addresses the root causes to child labor, forced labor, and other forms of exploitation
Please find the attached details of contribution on "Ending child labour in agriculture with the help of Agricultural Stakeholders" for consideration.
First the rural farmer lacks knowledge about any legal instrument and committment to the definition of child labour, mostly children are engaged to support the Agriculture, in cultivation, for older children, and planting for younger children. Also in harvesting and processing usually is left for women and girls. Most of the farmers that engage children in Agricuture start with their children, and in some cases, children of relatives either staying with them or visiting. It is mostly believed that this is a form of traing and grooming, since agriculture is an age long tradition, and largely transmitted through inheritance to the next generation.
Sadly, these children should be in school, except that the parents don’t seem to understand the need for education, or the children are able to support production which in-turn translates to more money and food available to avert hunger and poverty. But that is one sided in the sense that if the children acquires and education, they can improve production, using less energy and more machines to produce food.
In especially conflict contexts, where children are either separated from their parents or are orphaned by the conflict, the older children takes responsibilities for catering for the younger ones who depend of agriculture for livelihood.
Here are the following recommendations to reduce child labour in Agriculture:
1- Raise awareness on the issue of child labour are national and community level, leveraging on the traditional and religious leaders to deliver greater outreach at grassroots.
2- Support basic education, and promote school enrollment of underserved and marginalized population
3- Put in place stronger more people centered monitoring system, that not just collect data but seeks to learn real challenges and proffer solutions to support small holding farmer,
4- Design a reward system that support increase school enrollment and completion of underserved children.
5- Design bottom up programs that capture the peoples input, through focused group discussion, with traditional, religious leaders, farmers groups, women’s groups, to criminalize and bring to book violators of the enjoyment to the full right of the child.
6- Promote the domestication of the child rights act at national level. In Nigeria for instance, most of the states in the North have not domesticated the law. (Making it fluid to manage, already a challenge then exasperated by Covid-19 pandemic, it is reported that out of school enrollment jumped to around 13 Million in Nigeria, with the greater portion in the north, regrettably, the recent abduction of school children, will push that figure higher.)
7- Increase outreach to non-sates armed groups on IHL, and international law, to promote protection of children in armed conflict.
This activity is now closed. Please contact [email protected] for any further information.