Durban Declaration calls for action against child labor
Children forced to work in a quarry in Nairobi, Kenya on September 29, 2020. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many Kenyans have lost their jobs, and more miners have had to go to work.
AP - Brian Inganga
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
Meeting in Durban, South Africa for a week, delegates to the 5th World Conference on Child Labor reached an agreement this Friday, May 20, to eliminate this practice by 2025, while the Covid-19 pandemic undermined the progress made so far.
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The figures are constantly increasing: 160 million children in the world are forced to work.
And 60% of them are in Africa.
At the opening of the summit
on Sunday, May 15, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called on delegates to take “
wide-ranging
” actions to respond to the emergency.
The 2025 deadline of
the UN Sustainable Development Goals
for the elimination of child labor is approaching.
After several days of debates and observations on the excesses linked to child labour, the Durban declaration lists a series of actions to be applied, with in particular 49 “
immediate
” measures, according to the terms of this declaration.
These measures include making an effort to eliminate the "
worst forms of child labor
", "
establishing a minimum wage
", "
redouble efforts to formalize the informal economy
", "
intensify efforts to prevent and combat forced labour
”, to “
end child labor in agriculture
”, and above all to ensure “
keeping children in school
”.
For this, this declaration recommends to “
develop school infrastructure and security
” in rural areas, or to recruit qualified teachers.
After the declarations of principles, it remains to be seen whether these recommendations are achievable in such a short time.
It is not easy to achieve these objectives in a context where the informal sector is still predominant.
“The situation is aggravated by crises, those created by humans and by nature.
There is a causal relationship between child labor and climate change.
»
World Conference on Child Labor in Durban: the analysis of Joni Toko Musabayana
Christina Okello
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