ILO: Child laborers declining worldwide

An International Labor Organization (ILO) report on Tuesday said the global count on child laborers has decreased from 246 million to 168 million in the last four years, but singled out Asia Pacific as the region which has the biggest number of minors trapped in forced labor and slavery.

The ILO report, titled “Marking progress against child labor: Global estimates and trends 2000-2012,” said Asia-Pacific countries, including the Philippines, have the biggest number of child laborers now at 78 million; the previous figure was 114 million. The region also has the largest number of child laborers in hazardous work at 33.9 million out of the global total of 85 million.

The report is based on regional estimates and does not contain country specific figures. But in 2011 the National Statistics Office said there were 5.5 million child workers. Of this figure, 2.9 million were in the worst forms of child labor, including sex slavery, Internet pornography, mining and bonded labor.

The new figures would guide leaders in drafting policies in the forthcoming Third Global Conference on Child Labor, which will be hosted by Brazil next month.

ILO Director General Guy Ryder said the fight against child labor is on the right track, but the goal of eliminating its worst forms by 2016 will not be met at the current pace of the campaign.

“We are moving in the right direction but progress is still too slow. If we are serious about ending the scourge of child labor in the foreseeable future, we need a substantial stepping up of efforts at all levels. There are 168 million good reasons to do so,” Ryder said. The ILO’s global target is to completely eliminate child labor by 2016 through various interventions in countries where child labor is prevalent.

The ILO report also showed that in absolute terms, Asia Pacific still has more child laborers than any other region of the world because of the overall size of the population.

Asia Pacific has 9.3 percent (compared to 13.3 percent in 2008) of the global number of child laborers, which is still higher than Latin America and the Caribbean (8.8 percent) and the Middle East and North Africa (8.4 percent). The worst region is Sub-Saharan Africa with 21.4 percent (equivalent to 59 million child laborers).

The ILO report also showed that although the incidence of “child labor was highest in poorer nations, middle-income countries have the largest numbers of child laborers.”

“This makes clear that income and poverty are not the only reasons for child labor,” the report said.

Agriculture remains the largest child employer, with 98 million children, or 59 percent globally. The report further showed that there are increasing numbers in services (currently 54 million or 32 percent) and industry (12 million or 7.2 percent)—mostly in the informal economy.

The ILO recommended four areas of reforms that include legislation and enforcement, education and skills development, better social protection and more decent work opportunities for young people. There is also a need for more work on age- and gender-specific responses, and in the services and manufacturing sectors.

“The Asian region has made great progress in reducing child labor, thanks to an impressive amount of hard work and political and social commitment,” Yoshiteru Uramoto, regional director of ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, said. “But the job is not done and the last steps will be tough. An invigorated and aggressive drive is needed to finally consign child labor to the history books and let the children of Asia Pacific fulfill their potential.” –Estrella Torres, Businessmirror