Module 4 | Decent Rural Employment | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Reducing and preventing child labour in agriculture

Child labour overwhelmingly occurs in agriculture – the sector accounts for 70 percent of child labour worldwide. Over recent years, FAO and its partners have substantially increased efforts to address the issue. However, applying effective approaches remains challenging, given the characteristics of the agriculture sector, such as its informality and high rates of work-related deaths, non-fatal accidents and occupational diseases. In fact, many tasks undertaken by children in agriculture are considered hazardous. Agricultural stakeholders have an important role to play in preventing and reducing child labour, which perpetuates the cycle of poverty for the children involved, along with their families and communities. Without education and with damaged health, these boys and girls are likely to remain poor.

This module provides an overview of the definition of child labour and FAO's approach to addressing its root causes. It then collates several useful materials to guide policymakers, planners, researchers and practitioners to better understand the reality of child labour in rural areas and to identify workable solutions to prevent and eliminate it.

Understanding what is and what is not child labour is necessary for successfully addressing the issue in rural areas. A child is defined as any person under 18. Child labour is work that is inappropriate for a child's age, affects children's education, or is likely to harm their health, safety or morals, as well as their future livelihoods. Child labour concerns work for which the child is either too young, work that deprives a child of compulsory education, or work which, because of its detrimental nature or conditions, is unsuitable for and prohibited to children.

Not all activities carried out by children are child labour. Some activities may stimulate their development, as they enable them to acquire precious skills and contribute to their survival and food security. These activities can be beneficial if they are not hazardous, not undertaken for long hours, and do not interfere with school, learning and children’s right to leisure. Children above national minimum age for admission to employment – set between 14 and 16 years of age – but who are still below 18 years of age, may work full time as long as they are not involved in hazardous tasks or other worst forms of child labour, as regulated by ILO conventions.

Child labour in agriculture is a global matter caused by a wide range of factors, including economic issues, access to education, political context, and cultural and social factors. One of the key causes of child labour in agriculture is rural poverty. This condition leads children to work to support their families or may also push employers to hire children with lower wages. Another problem is the limited implementation of national and international labour legislation and policy in rural areas.

Access to relevant and quality education is also a contributing component. Education is not always available in rural areas or, when it is, the curriculum and students’ needs are not aligned, as children and parents in rural areas are also interested in acquiring agricultural skills to support, in the future, their family business or their own. Also, even when education is accessible, the agriculture sector does not always provide decent employment opportunities, forcing children to migrate to urban areas and hampering their transition from school to employment. In addition, as agricultural work is one of the most dangerous industries, children's chances of undertaking hazardous activities increase. These children who are legally allowed to work (15–17 years old) may still be trapped in child labour, given the hazardous nature of the tasks they undertake.

FAO addresses these issues by:

Delivering policy support at regional and country levels to ensure long-term sustainable solutions to child labour by embedding the issues and solutions in the institutional framework. However, child labour in agriculture is challenging to address because the agriculture sector tends to be under-regulated in many countries. Labour legislation and policy are not always implemented in rural areas and are not always adapted to rural contexts. FAO is providing technical support to governments worldwide in order to integrate child labour issues in their respective national agricultural policies and strategies.
Raising awareness and advocating at global and country levels to increase agricultural and other key stakeholder’s knowledge on the specificities of child labour in the agriculture sector. To do so, FAO works through the International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture (IPCCLA) and the Alliance 8.7 on major international initiatives, including the World Day Against Child Labour, to raise awareness on priority areas of action to eradicate child labour in agriculture. These multistakeholder partnerships increase and strengthen collaboration and cooperation among agricultural actors and with other key stakeholders (e.g. labour, education).
Strengthening knowledge and capacity. The work that children perform in agriculture is often invisible. In fact, available data on the activities that girls and boys are involved in, as well as the risks associated with them, are limited. In response, FAO shares relevant information with agricultural stakeholders across countries and within different agricultural subsectors to strengthen their knowledge and skills when advocating and taking action against child labour. The Organization is delivering national and regional workshops, training, as well as disseminating learning materials adapted to various contexts and conducting research to ensure evidence-based policy action and institutional development. FAO also provides support to overcome constraints to agricultural production that create a demand for child labour, such as limited uptake of labour-saving technologies. Finally, it promotes the adoption of safer agricultural practices to mitigate occupational hazards.

Resources

This module provides links to several publications related to child labour in agriculture, including explanatory information on the issue across agricultural sub-sectors or regions.

Background papers:

Cross-sectoral:

Subsectors:

(FAO. 2018) Eliminating child labour and promoting decent work in fisheries and aquaculture
(FAO. 2021) Tackling child labour in fisheries and aquaculture
(FAO. 2021) Tackling child labour in livestock keeping

Safe and sustainable agricultural practices:

Geographical:

This module provides access to guidance materials on addressing child labour in fisheries and aquaculture, as well as assessing the impacts of agricultural and food security programmes on child labour. It also provides a training module on child labour prevention and a visual guide on protecting children from pesticides for facilitators of non-formal type of trainings such as Farmer Field Schools (FFS) and Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS).