Insight From ILO Child Labour Platform

We are at a crossroads in the fight against child labour. Global progress against child labour has stalled for the first time in two decades. Now more than ever, we need business commitment and leverage to end child labour.

Alarmingly, progress addressing this challenge has hit an unexpected standstill. Consider the figures: an estimated 160 million children between ages 5 and 17 were victims of child labour in 2020, according to estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF. This equates to almost 1 in 10 children worldwide and represents an increase of over 8 million since 2016.

These children, stripped of their childhood, education and potential, are largely found in agriculture, producing the food many of us enjoy in the comfort of our homes. A lack of decent work for parents, poverty, and inadequate social protection systems are also driving children to work across sectors. This bleak reality is not only undermining their rights and future opportunities, but also perpetuating cycles of poverty and child labour.

We can, and must, reverse this trend. The private sector has the responsibility and leverage to accelerate progress for millions of children in child labour. Recent research from the Alliance 8.7 indicates that anywhere between 9% and 26% of child labour (varying by region) is linked to global supply chains.

Imagine the profound impact companies can make by collaboratively addressing the root causes of this problem – not only by helping the immediate victims, but also by reorienting management systems and rethinking business models to uplift millions of vulnerable families, workers and communities and contribute to wider prosperity and social justice.

The ILO, the tripartite UN agency for the world of work, is supporting and strengthening the private sector’s efforts through its Child Labour Platform (CLP). The Platform brings together businesses across industries to share good practices and implement collective solutions to end child labour in supply chains. Its concrete interventions extend from the coffee sector in Honduras, to cotton and spice production in India, to cocoa, palm oil and rubber cultivation in Côte d’Ivoire, to cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Through these collaborative actions, the CLP is protecting vulnerable children and tackling the root causes of child labour by promoting decent work, social protection for impoverished communities, and improved incomes for adults and young people, working alongside governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations. At the core of this effort lies the urgent need for business and all other actors to respect and support the freedom for people to organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives, and for girls and women to enjoy equal opportunities for quality education and decent jobs.

Last year, we were happy to welcome Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) to our coalition. As a leading global merchant and processor of agricultural goods such as sugar, coffee and cotton, LDC is an important partner to promote and scale up change where child labour is often prevalent. LDC has joined other CLP members to contribute to an ILO-led project on ending child labour in the coffee supply chain of Honduras, Uganda and Vietnam. The project will advance respect for fundamental rights at work, and increase opportunities for decent jobs for women and young people in coffee communities.

The challenge we face is colossal, but so too is the opportunity for change. The stakes are not just numbers or statistics; they are the lives and futures of millions of children worldwide. We have the knowledge, the tools, and the solutions to end child labour in the next generation. It will take all of us to act collectively and reignite progress to do it.