Hundreds of millions of girls and boys throughout the world are engaged in work that deprives them of adequate education, health, leisure and basic freedoms, violating their rights. Of these children, more than half are exposed to the worst forms of child labour such as work in hazardous environments, slavery, or other forms of forced labour, illicit activities such as drug trafficking and prostitution, as well as involvement in armed conflict. (Text taken from ILO website)
The International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the first World Day Against Child Labour in 2002 as a way to highlight the plight of these children. Observed on 12 June, the Day is intended to serve as a catalyst for the growing worldwide movement against child labour and provides and opportunity to gain support from governments, civil society, schools, youth and women's groups as well as the media, in the campaign against child labour.
One example of child labour, highlighted in the below video, concerns Turkey’s hazelnut industry and the efforts being made to get children out of the hazelnut fields and into schools.
For more information, visit the UN's World Day Against Child Labour web pages.
If you would like some ideas to help your school mark World Day Against Child Labour you can read through our article on Child Labour, which provides an introduction to some of the issues.
You can also search for teaching resources by browsing through the resources listed on our database under the topics of 'Child labour‘ or ‘Child rights‘.
The above article first published on globaldimension.org.uk.
