There are a lot of children around the world are still working to help their families instead of going to school.
In 2015, world leaders made a bold promise to end child labour by 2025. But that promise has not been kept. Millions of kids are still facing dangerous conditions every day and missing out on a safe and happy childhood.
In 2025, there are approximately 138 million of children are still working worldwide.
Taking one of those children’s cases is Tenasoa, a 12-year-old girl from Madagascar. Because of a unfortunate disability, she is unable to walk. So she has to crawl to work in a mine every day. She gathers a shiny mineral called mica, which is used in makeup, car paint and various other products.
Tenasoa is not the only child working in mines. Around 10,000 of children are employed in the mica industry just only in Madagascar. These children work long hours often alongside adults, in unsafe environments filled with dust and unstable tunnels. Most of them don’t go to school and forced to work to help their families.
Tenasoa’s grandfather Soja said, If we don’t work, we don’t get food to eat. Also added, “Everyone in the family has to work – men, women and children”.
A new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF shows that child labour has gone down a little since 2020. It’s about 12 million fewer children are working now since 2020.
But the number is still very high. Even worse in certain ways, 54 million of these children are doing dangerous jobs like mining, farming with chemicals or construction.
Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, warns that millions of children still working in dangerous working conditions. “We know how to fix this problem,” she says. “We’ve made progress before but we’re still far from where we need to be.”
That doesn’t mean, every task performed by children qualifies as child labour. Helping out at home or doing small chores is okay. Benjamin Smith, an expert from the ILO, defines child labour as work that threatens and harms children’s health, education and development.
Honorine, a 13-year-old girl in Benin, works every day in a gravel pit from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. She gets paid for per bucket of gravel she collects. She is saving money because she wants to become a hairdresser one day.
Child labour is a big problem especially in poor families. Many parents send their children to work because they don’t earn enough money. Children who work usually miss school which keeps them in poverty and makes their future harder.
Federico Blanco, a Lead Author of Child Labour Reported that “Each Statistic is a child losing out on their future”.
Some children are lucky to get help. Nur, at just 13 years old, a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh, was forced to leave school and start working. But a UNICEF worker helped his family and now he gets a second chance to back in school. He wants to be a teacher and now he feels like he can do it.
The reports of ILO and UNICEF express that Governments must work together to solve this problem. That means helping poor families, giving parents better jobs and making sure children can go to school. Basically improving adult working conditions can help break the cycle.
But financial lacking is also a problem. Many programs to help stop child labour are not getting enough funding. According to Catherine Russell from UNICEF, “Children belong in classrooms, not workplaces”.
Children like 10-year-old Adwara in Ethiopia still dream of going to school. For supporting his family, he is forced to work in a gold mine. “I’d like to go to school,” he says, “Because I want to become someone.”
Every child deserves a chance to learn, play and dream of a better future. To end child labour, we must work together to fight poverty, support families and make sure schools are open and safe. Now children deserve to have their childhood restored.
(Source: UN News)
