WUNRN
ILO - International Labour
Organization
CHILD LABOUR - PATTERNS OF
INEQUALITY START YOUNG - GIRLS' RIGHTS - ILO
Statement
| 11 October 2012
The
ILO welcomes the special focus on the situation of the girl child on this new
UN International Day of the Girl Child.
Gender inequalities that take root at an early age tend to produce long-term
gender inequality which is reproduced in the world of work.
We are compelled to act to ensure that the rights of all girls and boys are
equally respected. Yet, notwithstanding the values, principles and rights so
widely endorsed by the international community, too often the reality is that
girls are systematically left behind by virtue of their sex. This must end.
Practices such as child labour and child marriage – the theme of this Day – are
a denial of the rights of children and an acute constraint to their full
development. Such practices also weigh heavily on the overall capacity of
societies to achieve their development objectives.
Some 88 million of the world’s child labourers are girls. Their specific
vulnerability is recognized in the ILO’s
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) which asks
member States to take this into account.
Many girls enter the workforce at an early age, commonly ending up in the
lowest paid and insecure work, constrained by gender inequality at home and in
the workplace. Moreover many working in the home remain invisible and
unaccounted for. The patterns of inequality are also reflected in education
outcomes with 64 per cent of illiterate adults being women.
Inequality of access at the primary level becomes even more marked at the
secondary level. Yet education, starting with a quality basic education for
all, is the corollary to the effective abolition of child labour and a
fundamental step in opening up better prospects for decent work in adulthood and
in generating a new dynamic of change with social and economic progress.
The benefits of valuing and investing in the girl child for herself, her
family, community and society, have long been evident.
Improving the situation of the girl child on a sustainable basis calls for a
coherent set of measures geared towards changing structures, policies and
values that sustain social injustice. Measures targeting the girl child must be
accompanied by those that empower women and mothers – through organization, access
to income-generating activities and social protection.
Today with persisting conditions of global economic crisis and uncertainty,
there must be a firm resolve to re-commit to the goals of social progress and
social justice in shaping a world where the girl child finds her rightful place
– on equal terms with boys, at home and in school and well-prepared for entry,
at the right time, to the world of work.