Invisible children, children made invisible by a system that excludes them without reason. The child labor data and statistics 2020 They alarm and oblige us to analyze this global phenomenon. Many children are deprived of a roof, food and love to work long hours a day, without having access to the educational system and with an uncertain future to say the least.
The capitalist system speaks of a world divided between those who are part of it and those who are excluded for various reasons. Among them are children, innocent figures in this world scheme that is in check. What can we do to avoid child labor? Let's start by accessing the toughest information. Undoubtedly, the figures and statistics of child labor affect all of us who have children and care for them with love and protection.
Child labor figures 2020
#TheUnescapeRoom is a campaign launched by UNICEF Spain to raise awareness about the child exploitation who was born when the World Day Against Child Labor. It arises from the data and statistics of child labor in the world, figures that undoubtedly alarm and force us to look at this global problem.
An estimated 151,6 million children and girls are victims of child labor, almost half -72,5 million to be more precise- carry out the worst versions of child labor: slavery, trafficking, forced labor or recruitment for armed conflicts, obligation to carry out illegal or dangerous work. How to stop this reality?
The answer seems to lie in education and the access of all children to a system that teaches them and provides them with tools to insert themselves into a system that today excludes them. They are invisible children, children that nobody wants to see in order to ignore the unanswered questions posed by an unbalanced economic system. Child victims of child labor are everywhere but nobody sees them.
They often work in clandestine workshops in Third World countries, they are domestic servants or spend long hours in plantations, they work in mines, factories and garbage dumps. They are boys and girls who feed the system with the paradox that, at the same time, they are innocent victims of it. Many of them work in the agricultural sector and under very harsh conditions or do unworthy hours in a clandestine workshop or do not receive a salary in the home where they attend.
The data and statistics on child labor are very hard:
- Victims of trafficking (1,2 million)
- Victims of debt bondage or other forms of slavery (5,7 million)
- Victims of prostitution and / or pornography (1,8 million)
- Child soldiers in armed conflicts (300.000).
Child labor statistics 2020 by region
According to the region, 2020 child labor statistics 2020: Asia and the Pacific have the highest number of working boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 14, with 127,3 million in total, accounting for 19% of the working boys and girls in the region.
The child labor figures 2020 Africa are also alarming, with about 48 million child laborers, almost one in three under 15 years - 29% - is economically active. Although the numbers are falling in Latin America and the Caribbean, they are still in the red. In this region there are approximately 17,4 working boys and girls, In other words, 16% of boys and girls work while there are 15% of boys and girls working in the Middle East and North Africa. And one more piece of information: between 2,5 million and 2,4 million boys and girls work in developed and transition economies respectively, which speaks of a system that is strengthened thanks to the irresponsibility of the most powerful.
Types of child labor
The child labor figures and statistics 2020 in the world, they force us to focus our eyes on this problem, even more so when it delves into the types of child labor. Although, according to UNICEF and following the guidelines of Convention No. 138 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), from the age of 12 children can perform the so-called "infantile defects" -an economic activity or type of light work that does not negatively affect their health or development - this activity is far from the so-called «child labor».
El child labor refers to children who work in contravention of the ILO standards that appear in Conventions 138 and 182, and includes all children under 12 years of age who work in any economic activity, as well as those who are 12 to 14 years old and they work in non-light work, and to boys and girls who practice the worst versions of child labor.