Over the past four years, the number of employees and adolescents around the world increased by 8.4 million and amounted to 160 million. Prior to that, over 20 years, from year to year, the scale of child labor has been declining. This is stated in the new report of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The authors of the document fear that because of the pandemic even more boys and girls will be forced to throw studies and work in order to survive.
According to the ILO, in the period from 2000 to 2016, the number of working children in the world decreased by 94 million. But the trends of the last four years may reverse these achievements.
The authors of the report report that half of all 160 million juvenile workers make up children aged 5 to 11 years. In addition, approximately 79 million boys and girls aged 5 to 17 are working in dangerous for their health and life conditions – in mines, farms and plantations, they often have to deal with dangerous mechanisms and poisonous evaporation, reports Anadolu.
The number of children employed at work that creates a health risk increased by 6.5 million from 2016
According to ILO experts, the economic shocks and closing of schools in connection with COVID-19 will turn out that the children will work more and in the worst conditions.