Child labour ‘is enemy’

No country and economy can consider itself to be at the forefront of progress if its success and riches have been built on the backs of children, says President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa was delivering an address at the Fifth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, in partnership with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in Durban on Sunday.

The conference, which is hosted for the first time on African soil, will continue for the rest of the week.

It will look at why millions of children are victims of exploitative labour practices, why this persists in some countries but less in others and what decisive interventions are needed to end these practices.

“Child labour is an enemy of children’s development and an enemy of progress. We are here because we recognise the urgent need to put an end to a situation where millions of children are losing their formative years to the burden of unfair responsibility,” he said.

According to the ILO and Unicef, substantial progress has been made in addressing the worst forms of child labour exploitation.

Despite this, the ILO says the effect of worsening poverty means that a further 8.9 million children are expected to be engaged in child labour by the end of 2022.

“This threatens our efforts to eliminate child labour by 2025 as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This means that we need to intensify our efforts and tackle the challenges we still face with renewed purpose,” the president said.

Ramaphosa said one of the most significant challenges is that the dire material conditions facing millions of families around the world often places them in an impossible predicament.

“When life is about survival and families struggle to make ends meet, young children are often forced to leave school to earn wages to assist their families,” he said. –