PIL - Public International Law

Nearly 1 in 10 children are subjected to child labour worldwide, with some forced into hazardous work through trafficking.

Roughly 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020. This accounts for nearly 1 in 10 children worldwide. Almost half of them are in hazardous work that directly endangers their health and development.
In its most insidious forms, child labour can amount to slavery or practices similar to slavery, including the sale and trafficking of children. In some places, children may be forcibly recruited into armed conflict, used in the production and trafficking of drugs, or offered into prostitution.
Global progress against child labour has recently stagnated: The proportion of children in child labour remained roughly unchanged since data were collected in 2016. Similarly, the percentage of children in hazardous work has also persisted.
But global estimates mask large variations across regions. In both Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean, child labour has trended downward in percentage and absolute terms. Similar progress in sub-Saharan Africa has proven elusive: This region has seen an increase in the number and the share of children engaged in child labour. Now, nearly 87 million children in sub-Saharan Africa are in some form of child labour – more than the rest of the world combined.

ICRC teams were recently in the north of Gaza and saw firsthand the devastating humanitarian situation civilians are experiencing.

Deputy head of Gaza sub-delegation Stephanie Eller shares her consideration.

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