Child labour is a deep rooted problem in India. The fundamental cause of this evil is poverty that forces families to push their children to work for a living. Though laws have been formed by the government, stricter action still needs to be taken to tackle this problem.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) launched ‘World Day Against Child Labour’ and is observerd on June 12 in 2002 to tackle the global issue of child labour however to grab global attention to the terrifying figures of child labour, shared some of these figures in their World Day Against Child Labour program this year.

Check out these figures by the ILO on child labour:

• 152 million children involved in child labour worldwide, 73 million perform hazardous work.
• Hazardous labour comprises of working in manual scavenging, construction, agriculture, mines, factories, as street hawkers, domestic help, etc.
• Such labour, the ILO points out, “endangers the health, safety and moral development of children,”. Not only that, it also takes away a normal childhood and proper education from the children.
• Hazardous child labour affects 45 million boys and 28 million girls around the world.
• In recent years, the number of children between the ages of five and 11 involved in hazardous labour has increased to 19 million.

ILO’s agenda :

“Children are more vulnerable to risk than adults. Urgent action is needed to ensure no child under the age of 18 is in hazardous child labour,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.
On this World Day Against Child Labour, a joint campaign has been launched with World Day for Safety and Health at Work (SafeDay) to improve the safety and health of young workers and end child labour.
The campaign also aims to “accelerate action to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 8.8 of safe and secure working environments for all workers by 2030 and SDG target 8.7 of ending all forms of child labour by 2025,”.

Here are the things you can do to help eradicate child labour:

• Report if you see a child working.
• Help parents to understand the importance of Education and harmful effects of child labour.
• Support NGO’s and other welfare organizations who help to support childrens against child labour.