Child Labour Day:
The United Nations observes June 12 each year as the ‘World Day Against Child Labour’ to bring attention to the evil practices of child labour across the world.
- The International Labour Organisation launched this day in 2002 to tackle this global issue against child labour.
- Theme: “Universal Social Protection to End Child Labour”.
- 160 million children are still engaged in child labour – some as young as five.
- At the beginning of 2020, one in ten children aged five and over were involved in child labour worldwide.
- The number of children in child labour declined by 85.5 million between 2000 and 2020 i.e from 16% to 9.6%.
- At the global level, national expenditure on social protection for children amounts to only 1.1% of GDP.
- Africa is the region with the largest share of children in the population.
- The ILO Convention No. 182, which deals with the worst forms of child labour as well as ILO Convention No. 138, that deals with the minimum age for employment, are the two main global conventions on the issue.
