The negative socio-economic impact of Covid-19 may lead to an increase in child labour, according to a panel talk.

ChiLDreN need to be protected from child labour more than ever due to the devastating impacts of the pandemic, experts said during a virtual interactive panel discussion held in hanoi.

The event yesterday added a voice to the global call for action on World Day against Child Labour, which fell on Friday.

Dang hoa Nam, director of the Department of Children’s Affairs under the Labour, invalids and social Affairs Ministry, said Vietnam’s first national survey of child labour in 2012 showed that there were about 1.75 million child labourers nationwide, making up 9.6% of children.

Child labour has significantly declined in the country as the second national child labour survey in 2018 found about one million labourers or 5.4% of the country’s children, he said.

however, he said the pandemic left negative impacts on national socio-economic development and families’ lives with an economic slowdown, increased unemployment, increased stress or domestic violence during physical distancing and increasing risks of online child abuse while children spent more time on online learning, he said.

Covid-19 was projected to double the poverty rate in the country, according to a report by the World Bank in April, Nam said.

“Poverty is the biggest cause of child labour,” he added. Le hong Loan, chief of the Child Protection section of Unicef in Vietnam, said a paper titled “Covid-19 and child labour: A time of crisis, a time to act”, released on Friday by Unicef, indicated that the crisis could lead to the first recorded rise in child labour after 20 years of progress.

“The pandemic could result in a rise in poverty and therefore an increase in child labour as households use every available means to survive,” she said.