COMMENT | Eliminate the unacceptable. End child labour.

COMMENT | The United Nations has declared 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour. A total of 62 million children in the Asia Pacific region are in child labour. It is a simple sentence to write but far harder to comprehend.

Sixty-two million children.

Spend a moment to think just how big that number is – roughly similar to every child aged under 14 in the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan combined. Meanwhile, 28 million of them undertake hazardous work, risking their lives and health daily in sectors such as mining, agriculture and construction.

But behind the big numbers are individual children, each with hopes and dreams for the future. Children like Min Min,` who scavenges for scraps of jade but dreams of buying his own house; Shahid collecting waste plastic bottles but longing for education; and Bhiti, toiling on a sewing machine but yearning to become a doctor.

Wherever child labour takes place, it has devastating consequences for a child’s education, skills acquirement and future possibilities to overcome the vicious circle of poverty, incomplete education and bad jobs.

The persistence of child labour in today’s world is unacceptable. As ILO director-general Guy Ryder said recently, “There is no place for child labour in society. It robs children of their future and keeps families in poverty."

The good news is that at a global level over the last 20 years, almost 100 million children have been removed from child labour, bringing numbers down to the current figure of 152 million worldwide.

Although numbers have fallen, the trend has slowed ...