Protecting the right to a childhood
More than 150 million boys and girls around the world lose their childhoods to child labour. 108 million of them are working in agriculture.
Ending child labour means that millions of children regain the chance to stay in school, grow up happy and healthy and lead productive futures. © FAO / Cristiano Civitillo
Many of us look back on our childhoods with warm feelings. But for more than 150 million girls and boys between the ages of 5 and 17 around the world, childhood means something else: poverty, a lack of education and working long hours in dangerous conditions.
Child labour is defined as work that is inappropriate for a child’s age, or more specifically, work that affects a child’s education or is likely to harm their health, safety or morals.
Around 70 percent of all child labourers work in agriculture (livestock, forestry, fishing or aquaculture) – that’s an increase of 12 percent, or 10 million more girls and boys, since 2012. Clearly, this is not an easy problem to erase, but it’s also an issue that we need to tackle to protect the well-being of millions of children.
Children should be free to fully realize their rights to education, leisure and healthy development. This in turn provides the essential foundation for broader social and economic development, poverty eradication and human rights.
But child labour is a complex problem.
Some key factors that contribute to child labour in rural areas are low family incomes, too few livelihood alternatives, poor access to education and limited labour law enforcement. Many families and communities feel that they have no other choice than to employ their children in agriculture in order to keep up with their demands for food and income. In fact, an estimated two-thirds of agricultural child labourers work in family operations or alongside family members.