Child labour

Abstract

Sustainable Development Goal target 8.7 aims to eradicate child labour in all its forms by 2025. Ten years before this deadline, the objective is far from being achieved since in 2016, about one-in-ten children (152 million in total) aged 5 to 17 were engaged in child labour worldwide, many of them as unpaid family workers in agriculture. Nearly half of the children in child labour were in hazardous work and exposed to serious health and safety risks. Moreover, about one-third of children in child labour do not attend school at all; the others go to school, but not all the time. Children in child labour are more likely to leave school early before grade completion, and underperform in school tests.