The Regional Workshop on ‘Ending Child Labour in Agriculture in Asia’ will be organized by FAO in close collaboration with the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific on 28 September 2021, from 13:00 to 15:20 (Bangkok time). The event will count on the participation of representatives of UN agencies, governments, private sector, cooperatives, academics and project beneficiaries.
 
The UN General Assembly has declared 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour. As part of its contribution, FAO published the Framework on Ending Child Labour in Agriculture. Along the same lines, ILO and UNICEF published the 2020 World Estimates of Child Labour. With four years to go before the 2025 deadline to reach the 8.7 target of the SDGs, the figures are alarming.
 
At the regional level, more than 5.5% of all children in the region (50.6 million) continue to work. Almost half of them are in agriculture, which shows the urgent need for progress in the sector. In this context, the challenges ahead are daunting and require coordinated and joint actions to get as close as possible to target 8.7 of the SDGs.

The regional workshop aims at raising awareness on child labour in agriculture and identifying ways of accelerating prevention of child labour in all agriculture subsectors. The regional workshop also aims at building momentum towards more concerted action at local, national and regional level with a view to contribute to achievements of SDG Target 8.7 through the lens of No Poverty (SDG1) and Zero Hunger (SDG2).

The conclusions of the Workshop will contribute to the Global Solutions Forum: “Acting together to end child labour in agriculture”, on November 2-3, 2021, organized by FAO in collaboration with the International Labor Organization (ILO).