Children, particularly girls, also work within the home and often spend long hours supporting adults with domestic chores, which is invisible and undercounted. These demands on children’s labour, whether paid or unpaid, can affect their participation and learning in school and can adversely impact their physical and mental health and future opportunities. 

Education can play a key role as part of a multi-sectoral approach to end child labour through supporting children’s learning, socialisation and development. Globally, education expansion has been associated with declines in child labour. Yet more needs to be done to strengthen this association to ensure every child is in school, learning, and not in the fields or factories, working. 

It refers to work that:

(1)is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and/or

(2)interferes with their schooling by: depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

Whether or not particular forms of work can be called child labour depends on the child’s age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries.

The worst forms of child labour

The worst forms of child labour involve children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – often at a very early age.

Whilst child labour takes many different forms, a priority is to eliminate without delay the worst forms of child labour as defined by Article 3 of ILO Convention No. 182:

(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;

(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;

(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;

(d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children (hazardous child labour or hazardous work).

Hazardous child labour, one of the worst forms of child labour

Hazardous child labour or hazardous work is defined by Article 3 of ILO Convention No. 182  as (d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

More specifically, hazardous child labour is work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions that could result in a child being killed, or injured or made ill as a consequence of poor safety and health standards and working arrangements. It can result in permanent disability, ill health and psychological damage. Often health problems caused by being engaged in child labour may not develop or show up until the child is an adult.

Hazardous child labour is the largest category of the worst forms of child labour with an estimated 79 million children, aged 5-17, working in dangerous conditions in a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, mining, construction, manufacturing, as well as in hotels, bars, restaurants, markets, and domestic service. It is found in both industrialised and developing countries. Girls and boys often start carrying out hazardous work at very early ages.

Sollutions for eliminating child labor

MOLISA introduced solutions that the Vietnamese Government has been implementing to increase children’s access to education, as well as to reduce the risk of school dropping out and eliminate child labor such as reducing direct and indirect costs of schooling and removing barriers to school access. Therefore, children’s access to education is increased.

Also, under UNICEF, a child’s right to education entails the right to learn. Yet, for too many children across the globe, schooling does not lead to learning.

Over 600 million children worldwide are unable to attain minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, even though two thirds of them are in school. For out-of-school children, foundational skills in literacy and numeracy are further from grasp.

Children are deprived of education for various reasons. Poverty remains one of the most obstinate barriers. Children living through economic fragility, political instability, conflict or natural disaster are more likely to be cut off from schooling – as are those with disabilities, or from ethnic minorities. In some countries, education opportunities for girls remain severely limited.

Even in schools, a lack of trained teachers, inadequate education materials and poor infrastructure make learning difficult for many students. Others come to class too hungry, ill or exhausted from work or household tasks to benefit from their lessons.

Compounding these inequities is a digital divide of growing concern: Most of the world’s school-aged children do not have internet connection in their homes, restricting their opportunities to further their learning and skills development.

Without quality education, children face considerable barriers to employment later in life. They are more likely to suffer adverse health outcomes and less likely to participate in decisions that affect them – threatening their ability to shape a better future for themselves and their societies.