WUNRN
WORLD DAY AGAINST CHILD LABOUR -
JUNE 12 - ILO
CHILD LABOUR REINFORCES PATTERNS OF
INEQUALITY FOR GIRLS
A
9-year-old girl in India toils under the hot sun, making bricks from morning to
night, seven days a week.
ILO - International
Labour Organization
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.
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SOCIAL PROTECTION
ESSENTIAL TO HELP ERADICATE CHILD LABOUR
The ILO calls on
governments to step up their efforts to extend social protection in order to
help keep children out of child labour.
12 June 2014 - GENEVA –
Well designed social protection policies, sensitive to children’s needs, can
make a real difference in the fight to eradicate child labour, said the
International Labour Organization on the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour.
According to the latest ILO global estimates, the total number of child labourers fell from 215 to 168
million between 2008 and 2012. In order to accelerate the
decline in child labour the global community must address its root causes more
effectively, the ILO said.
“There is no secret as to what needs to be done,” said ILO Director-General Guy
Ryder. “Social protection, along with universal compulsory, formal, quality
education at least up to the minimum age for work, decent work for adults and
youth of working age, effective law and strong social dialogue together provide
the right response to child labour.”
Jeopardized potential
World Day Against Child Labour comes a few days after the ILO released its World Social Protection Report 2014/15,
which shows that many children do not receive the child and family benefits
they need to realize their potential.
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Facts and figures |
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Underinvestment in
children jeopardizes their rights and their future, including their right to be
protected from child labour, the report said.
Governments allocate an average 0.4 per cent of GDP to child and family
benefits – ranging from 2.2 per cent in Western Europe to 0.2 per cent in
Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
The report builds on evidence presented in the 2013 ILO World Report on Child Labour:
Economic vulnerability, social protection and the fight against child labour.
According to this earlier report, cash and in-kind child and family benefits,
especially when combined with access to education and health services, can be
decidedly effective in addressing child labour.
These cash transfer programmes for children and families have been implemented
widely in Latin America, and also exist in other parts of the world. Examples
include Brazil’s Bolsa Família programme, the universal child benefit programme
in Mongolia and the South African Child Support Grant. Building up social
protection systems
Building up social
protection systems
Social protection measures also play a significant role in ending child labour.
Pensions, as well as unemployment, maternity, employment injury and disability
benefits also help prevent situations where children have to work to supplement
inadequate or insecure family incomes or enter child labour due to death,
injury, sickness or other sudden income shocks. Yet, worldwide, only 12 per
cent of unemployed workers receive unemployment benefits; only 28 per cent of
women in employment are protected through maternity benefits, and only 52 per
cent of those over retirement age receive a pension.
Health coverage that ensures access to health care does not only improve
people’s health, it also protects households from the risk of falling into
poverty due to health costs. Currently, about 40 per cent of total health
expenditure is directly shouldered by the sick.
The ILO Social Protection Floors
Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) reflects the global
consensus on nationally-defined basic social protection guarantees as a basic
right for all. It calls on the ILO’s 185 member States to guarantee that all
people have, at the very least, essential health care and basic income security
throughout their lives.
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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 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention -
http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C182
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.