South Africa: global conference to combat the increase in child labor
More numerous and younger and younger, children aged 5 to 11, compelled to work, now represent a little more than half of the total world figure.
© RFI/Denise Maheho
Text by: RFI Follow
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In South Africa, opens in Durban, Sunday, May 15, a world conference on the elimination of child labor.
More than 4,000 delegates - representatives of governments, trade unions, private and civil society, and young people from all over the world - will be present.
Progress has been made but, worldwide, the numbers are on the rise and the Covid-19 pandemic has something to do with it.
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The conference comes at a critical time.
One in ten children is still forced to work in the world.
Increasingly numerous and increasingly young, children aged 5 to 11 who are compelled to work now represent just over half of the total global figure.
The Covid-19 pandemic has impoverished populations and the consequences were immediately visible for the youngest.
In sub-Saharan Africa, population growth, combined with this extreme poverty, has had disastrous effects.
An estimated 16.5 million additional children have been forced into child labor over the past four years.
However, progress is being made in some regions.
In Zimbabwe, the government recently pledged to combat child labor in the tobacco industry.
The law sets the age of employment at 16, but does not prohibit younger people from handling tobacco, a subtlety that always benefits farmers.
Read also: Child labor increases for the first time in Africa for 20 years
In recent weeks, the Ivorian government has also signed a partnership to ensure better care for child workers in the cocoa sector.
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South Africa
Children's rights
Employment and Labor