Child Labour in Agriculture
Today, almost 1 in 10 of all children worldwide is engaged in child labour and the largest share remains in agriculture, with 112 million children in total – 70 percent of all child labour.
Held on 2 and 3 November 2021, the Global Solutions Forum – Acting together to end child labour in agriculture mobilized global action and identified scalable solutions to eradicate child labour in agriculture. The online event was organized in the context of the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour and brought together representatives of ministries of agriculture, fisheries, livestock and forestry, producers and farmers' organizations, workers' organizations, development banks, businesses, civil society and academia, children, youth advocates, and former child labourers, among others.
In view of the event, we conducted extensive regional consultations with agricultural stakeholders, capturing good practices, promising experiences, and innovative ideas to accelerate progress. An initial Call for action: ending child labour in agriculture with the help of agricultural stakeholders was followed up by regional consultations in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, Near East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
Structured around interactive sessions, the event provided a platform to present, discuss, and promote concrete solutions to address child labour in agriculture, through three perspectives:
- a regional lens, presenting the outcomes of regional consultations and the Call for Action;
- a sub-sectoral lens, covering crop farming, fisheries and aquaculture, livestock, and forestry;
- a cross-sectoral lens, including investment programmes, education and vocational training, gender equality and women's empowerment, decent work and safe working conditions for all, and humanitarian and emergency responses.
During the event, more than 75 national, regional and global agricultural stakeholders’ representatives have raised their voices and shared their commitment to step up concerted action to prevent and end child labour in agriculture.
Discover the key messages and solutions highlighted during the event:
To inform and support the consultations, FAO published 12 thematic and regional background papers:
The Global Solutions Forum managed to:
ACT: raise the voice and commitment of agricultural stakeholders.
INSPIRE: share game-changing solutions and identify ways to step up concerted action to prevent and end child labour in all agricultural sub-sectors.
SCALE-UP: inform the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, along with other global initiatives such as the United Nations Decade of Family Farming.
2021 International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour
The International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, declared by the UN General Assembly, is a historic opportunity to reaffirm commitments, take action and inspire broad partnerships to preserve the progress made on child labour and related issues such as social justice, inclusion and the reduction of inequalities.
Leveraging the impetus provided by the International Year, FAO steps-up efforts to catalyze global action and strengthen the capacities of a wide range of agricultural actors at all levels, with the objective of including child labour prevention and youth employment promotion in their work.
This initiative is the result of a collaboration among FAO, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture (IPCCLA), and the Alliance 8.7.
