Nearly one in 10 children globally is a slave

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A leading United Nations' anti-slavery group said on Tuesday that nearly one in 10 children worldwide - more than 150 million - are victims of slavery, and progress in reducing that number has slowed in recent years.

Nearly half the work these children do is considered to be hazardous and more than a third do not go to school, said a report by the UN labor agency, the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Although the number of child laborers has fallen by 94 million since 2000, the decline slowed from 2012 to 2016, they said.

File of children carrying firewood. /Reuters Photo

This slowing progress jeopardizes the United Nations' latest set of global goals, agreed in 2015, which include ending child labor by 2025, as part of a wider plan to tackle poverty and inequality.

Houtan Homayounpour, technical specialist on forced labor at the Geneva-based ILO, said the world was not on track to end child labor in eight years. At this rate, estimates say that 121 million children would still be in child labor in 2025. "We need to pick up the pace," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

According to the latest ILO estimate, A total of 152 million children - 64 million girls and 88 million boys - are victims of child labor.

File of children's hands stained from hard work. /Reuters Photo

More than two-thirds of these children are working on a family farm or in a family business with 71 percent overall employed in agriculture.

Nine out of every 10 live in Africa, Asia or the Pacific region, the ILO said, with sub-Saharan Africa experiencing a rise in child labor from 2012 to 2016.

"Africa, where child labor is highest in both proportionate and absolute terms, and where progress has stalled, remains a particular priority," the ILO said in its report.

An Afghan girl works at a brick-making factory in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. /Reuters Photo‍

The report noted a strong link between child labor and conflict and disaster, which cause the joblessness and displacement that make children vulnerable.

Among children in forced labor between ages five and 14, a third, or 36 million, do not go to school.

The ILO said its findings came from surveying households in all regions of the world and using data from the UN and governments worldwide.

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Source(s): Reuters