Child laborers projected to rise to 169M in 2022 worldwide

The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, poverty, inequality, drought and climate change impacts, and food crises are enough factors to force millions of children into labor this year, as revealed by the International Labor Organization (ILO) on the occasion of World Child Labor Day on June 12. 

A total of 169 million children are vulnerable to becoming child laborers this year if governments do not provide the families with financial security amid the current crises, stated ILO Director-General Guy Ryder in a recorded speech on the occasion of the 2022 World Child Labor Day.

He said that child laborers could rise this year by 9 million children to 169 million, noting that social protection is vital in preventing the surge of this figure. He attributed the reason for the possible surge to the Covid-19 pandemic, as it put “millions of children at risk due to poverty, inequality and school closure.”

This number includes 112 million children working in the agriculture field, according to the Durban Call to Action on the Elimination of Child Labor in May 2022.

About one in 10 children are forced into labor due to “poverty, sudden illness of a caregiver, or job loss of a primary wage earner,” according to UNICEF's latest data as of June 2021.

After being lowered by 94 million in the period between 2000 and 2016, the global child labor rate started going up in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, said UNICEF in a statement on June 10, 2021.

Over four years, from 2017 to 2021, the number raised by 16.6 million in sub-Saharan Africa due to “population growth, recurrent crises, extreme poverty, and inadequate social protection measures,” the report said.

“Nearly 28 percent of children aged 5 to 11 years and 35 percent of children aged 12 to 14 years in child labor are out of school,” the statement read.

To address this issue, the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labor adopted the Durban Call to Action, which called for providing a decent life for children, putting an end to child labor in the agriculture field, ensuring the right to education, and achieving universal access to social projection.

The largest number of child laborers was recorded in Africa, said the UN, adding that about 70 percent of child labor on the continent is in the agriculture sector.

In Somalia, for instance, drought has forced over 1,100 schools to be closed either fully or partially, contributing to more vulnerable child laborers, said the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in a statement on June 4.