DUSHANBE, June 12, Asia-Plus — Citing data indicating that many of the estimated 75 million children lacking primary schooling start working at an early age, the International Labor Office (ILO) said that education was critical to breaking the cycle of child labor and poverty as well as eradicating child labor in its worst forms by 2016.
Ms. Olga Bogdanova, Communications Officer, ILO Subregional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, told Asia-Plus today that the ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) published a new technical report on child labor and education based on surveys of child labor in 34 countries from all regions of the world. At the same time, as part of a new year-long campaign on “Gender equality at the heart of decent work”, the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality also highlighted combating child labor through education with the slogan “Formula for progress: Educate both girls and boys!”
The report cites UNESCO 3/ statistics showing that some 75 million children of primary school age were out of school in 2006, a reduction from 103 million in 1999. The report also acknowledges that the number of children involved in economic activities has been falling. In 2004 it was estimated there were some 20 million fewer economically active children aged 5-14 than there had been four years earlier. However there remained 191 million children aged 5-14 engaged in some kind of economic activity. Of this number 165 million were involved in child labor.
By examining how child labor affects main schooling indicators, the new ILO findings also strengthen the case for tackling child labor as a means of achieving education targets set in the UN Millennium Development Goals. The report notes that: child labor leads to reduced primary school enrolment and negatively affects literacy rates among youth; there is strong evidence that when children combine school and work, as the number of hours in work increases, school attendance falls; high levels of child labor are associated with lower performance on an Education Development Index, which measures a country’s performance on universal primary education, adult literacy, quality of education and gender parity; there is a significant correlation between the levels of children’s economic activity and primary school repetition rates. Grade repetition often leads to children dropping out of school; and rural working children and girls tend to be among the most disadvantaged. Girls often carry a double burden of work inside and outside the home, putting their schooling at risk.
IPEC also said that at the level of secondary school, average attendance is just 46 per cent for boys and 43 per cent for girls, and in sub-Saharan Africa only one child in five attends secondary school.
As part of its efforts to strengthen action to tackle child labor by boosting access to education, the ILO is coordinating the work of an inter-agency partnership, the Global Task Force on Child Labor and Education for All, which brings together UN agencies, teachers, and civil society representatives, to strengthen measures to help child laborers. In addition, 12 UN agencies through the UN Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee on Human Rights Education (UNIACC) have issued a joint Statement for World Day.
The ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) has activities in almost 90 countries worldwide. It works at the policy level, supporting development of legislative and policy frameworks to tackle child labor, as well as through programs aimed at preventing and withdrawing children from child labor, and has developed a Global Action Plan to eliminate its worst forms – including hazardous work, commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking and all forms of slavery –by 2016.
Hundreds of events will be organized in some 60 countries around the world to mark the World Day which each year focuses attention on child labor worldwide.
