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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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Dear Sir/Madam,

I hope that this email finds you in good health. On behalf of Centre for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education (CYECE), I would like to submit our contribution towards Call for action: ending child labour in agriculture with the help of agricultural stakeholders.

CYECE is an NGO based in Malawi working towards child promotion, Youth Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, Youth Empowerment and Participation. Please find the attached form for your attention.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Lucky Crown Mbewe 

See the attachments:

Francis Folley

Youth Coalition for the Consolidation of Democracy
Malawi

Dear Team,

I write to submit my application as in the Call for Action: ending child labour in agriculture with the help of agricultural stakeholders through my organization -Youth Coalition for the Consolidation of Democracy -Malawi. Please find attached.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

In solidarity and partnership 

Francis Folley

See the attachments:

Hello FSN Forum Team,

CARE is pleased to respond to the call for action on ending child labor in agriculture with the help of agricultural stakeholders. Our submission, Harnessing the Power of a Multi-sectoral Approach and Public-Private Partnership to Address the Root Causes of Child Labor in Cocoa Communities, is attached herewith. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or comments.

Thank you and kind regards,

Andrew

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Dear Mr. Bernd Seiffert

As per the official reports Child labour situation in Sri Lanka are as follows;

"Some 40,000 children are working as child labourers, which is about 1% of the school-going child population. In other words, one out of a hundred children in Sri Lanka are in child labour, mostly hazardous forms. 



Child labour and non-attendance in regular schooling is relatively high in Sri Lanka’s rapidly urbanising city centres than in rural areas. There is an established pattern of child labour –predominantly in the teenage category, engaged in the informal services sector. Their numbers are highest in the districts of Kurunegala, Gampaha, Colombo, Monaragala, and Batticaloa, with many other urbanised localities not far behind. 



A large proportion of soon to be young adults are engaged in child labour within the broader ecosystem of the informal services sector: such as in tourism, transport, petty trading, and caregiving. A majority of these children are boys. A large number also work in boutiques, tea kiosks, eateries, and other informal trades, in low-wage and precarious employment"

However, in my opinion, to eliminate child labour in agriculture  a country should have a holistic approach; Some of the sectors to be considered are as follows;

1. Poverty reduction should be given first priority

2. In some agricultural families parents do not prefer children's to have higher education as eventually they will move away from farms and no one to look after farmlands; In that case flexible school educations for agricultural families, agricultural colleges and universities would be a better option, until countries will develop to adopt equalize systems and until eradicating the poverty.

3. Farmers insurance & crop insurance  should be popularized as interruptions to child education and children moving to farmland instead of having an education at school are some impacts of hazardous situations such as droughts, floods

3. Current education system should be more equipped with agricultural knowledge. However, it should be rather giving specific agricultural knowledge, such as techniques, language to all children, while giving them overall knowledge there should be a system to give specific agricultural knowledge to those who are from agricultural areas, those who are interested to learn. This should not be considered as marginalizing or discriminating as it is to give priority to agriculture as a subject and give equlize importance to specialize such knowledge.

4. There should be parallel awareness campaigns to educate people that any career is not higher or lower than another. Not only doctors, lawyers but farmers are highly important to the development of the country. At least the education system should be catered to make such changes in the idiology, while governments taking actions to improve the standard of living of farmers.  

Sajeevani Weerasekara, Sri Lanka

Emre Yılmaztürk

ILO
Turkey

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the ILO Office for Turkey, I would like to share with you our “Call for action for ending child labour in seasonal agriculture with the help of agricultural stakeholders”.

Below you can also see web-links to the ongoing projects of ILO Turkey.

https://www.ilo.org/ankara/projects/child-labour/lang--en/index.htm

We wish our call would contribute to the FAO regional consultations for the International Year.

Looking forward to receiving more information on the FAO high-level Global Event on Ending Child Labour in Agriculture and developing new collaboration opportunities in the near future.

With best regards,

Emre Yılmaztürk

Senior Project Coordinator

ILO Office for Turkey

See the attachments: