‘Decent work for the parents’ is key to solving child labour

Ensuring that parents have opportunities for “decent work” is essential to reducing the number of young people, currently estimated to be 138 million globally, who are engaged in child labour, according to the UN.

The internationally-agreed goal was to end child labour by 2025 and while the number has decreased by 12 million since 2020, millions of children are still working in dangerous or unregulated work places and are being denied the right to an education and a safer, more secure future.

The Child Labour report released by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) highlights the trends in jobs involving young people and suggests how the practice can be brought to an end completely.

UN News’ Naima Sawaya sat down with Benjamin Smith, an expert at the ILO and began by asking him to explain what constitutes child labour.