Date of publication: May 7, 2010
Source: Reuters
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By Jonathan Lynn
The number of children used in the labor force worldwide has dropped although it is rising in Africa, the International Labour Organization said.
But ILO officials are worried that the pace of the reduction has slowed and they say governments must not use the global economic downturn as an excuse for inaction.
The number of child labourers had fallen to 215 million in 2008 from 222 million in 2004, a reduction of only 3 percent, an ILO report issued on Saturday said. In the previous four-year period, the number of child labourers dropped 10 percent.
"The economic downturn cannot become an excuse for diminished ambition and inaction. Instead it offers the opportunity to implement the policy measures that work for people, for recovery and for sustainable development," ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said.
Some 60 percent of child labourers work in agriculture, and most are unpaid family workers, with only one in five in paid employment, the ILO said.
Besides the moral question of young children working, development advocates say that child labor deprives children of education, setting back a country's economic prospects.
But many poor countries are suspicious of efforts by rich countries to use labor standards, including those on child workers, to shut out their competitive goods.
In regional terms, the number of children aged 5-14 in economic activity is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa but falling in other regions.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of children working, with one in four children aged 5-17 in child labor, against one in eight in the Asia-Pacific region and one in 10 in Latin American and Caribbean countries, it said.
The United Nations agency says in the report that a goal set in 2006 of eliminating the worst forms of child labor by 2016 will be missed on current trends.
Although the pace of decline in child labor is fastest for more dangerous work and vulnerable children, a total of 115 million children are still exposed to hazardous work, it said.
The number of children aged 5-14 in work fell by 10 percent in the 2004-2008 period, with a 31 percent fall children in hazardous work in this age range.
But child labor among young people aged 15-17 increased by 20 percent, to 62 million from 52 million, it said.
One third of the world's children live in countries that have not ratified the 1999 convention on the worst forms of child labor such as India or on the minimum age for work and the 1973 convention on the minimum age for work such as India or the United States.