World Report on Child Labour 2015: Paving the way to decent work for young people
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)
10 June 2015 :: 112 pages
978‐92‐2‐129689‐8[ISBN]
http://www.ilo.org/ipecinfo/product/download.do?type=document&id=26977

The second volume of the ILO World Report on Child Labour series highlights the close linkages between child labour and good youth employment outcomes, and the consequent need for common policy approaches to addressing challenges arising in countries where both child labour and youth unemployment prevail.
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Abstract
The Report presents empirical evidence of how child labour combined with limited education can lead to increased youth vulnerability and greater difficulties in transiting to good jobs. This evidence includes results from the ILO School-to-Work Transition Survey (SWTS) programme, an unprecedented data collection effort allowing the analysis of the trajectories followed by youth to enter the world of work in a total of 28 low- and middle-income countries around the world. The Report also reviews evidence of how the child labour-youth employment link can operate in the opposite direction, i.e., of how the difficulties faced by youth in the labour market can make personal investment in education less attractive as an alternative to child labour earlier in the lifecycle.

Hazardous work among adolescents aged 15 to 17 years is a third focus of the Report. Individuals in this critical age group, who are above the minimum working age in most countries but at the same time are still legally children, overlap the child labour and youth employment fields. Evidence is presented indicating that an alarming share of working adolescents aged 15 to 17 years are in hazardous work and therefore are child labourers.

Taken together, the evidence presented in the Report makes a strong case that the challenge of finding decent work during youth cannot be separated from the challenge of eliminating child labour earlier in the life cycle. Eliminating child labour, in other words, is a key policy goal in itself and a necessary starting point for achieving decent work for all.

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Press Release
World Day Against Child Labour 2015
New ILO study points to the long-term impact of child labour
New ILO report shows the need for coherent policies tackling child labour and the lack of decent jobs for youth together.

News | Geneva/Dhaka | 11 June 2015
Around 20 to 30 per cent of children in low income countries complete their schooling and enter the labour market by the age of 15, says a new International Labour Organization (ILO) report prepared for World Day against Child Labour. Most of these children were in child labour before.

The World Report on Child Labour 2015: Paving the way to decent work for young people shows that young persons who were burdened by work as children are consistently more likely to have to settle for unpaid family jobs and are more likely to be in low paying jobs.

“Our new report shows the need for a coherent policy approach that tackles child labour and the lack of decent jobs for youth together. Keeping children in school and receiving a good education until at least the minimum age of employment will determine the whole life of a child. It is the only way for a child to acquire the basic knowledge and skills needed for further learning, and for her or his future working life,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said.

To take up this challenge, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize co-Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who will address the ILO’s International Labour Conference on 11 June , calls for a change of mindsets: “When we consider our biological children, we think that they are born to become doctors, engineers, and professors – the whole world is for them. But when we talk about other children, we think, ok, they are poor children, let them work, we will slowly help them. Let us consider all children our children.”

Main findings
The report addresses the twin challenges of eliminating child labour and ensuring decent work for young people. Based on a 12 country survey, it examines the future careers of former child labourers and early school leavers.

The main findings of the report are that:
:: Prior involvement in child labour is associated with lower educational attainment, and later in life with jobs that fail to meet basic decent work criteria;
:: Early school leavers are less likely to secure stable jobs and are at greater risk of remaining outside the world of work altogether;
:: A high share of 15-17 year olds in many countries are in jobs that have been classified as hazardous or worst forms of child labour; and
:: Those in hazardous work are more likely to have left school early before reaching the legal minimum age of employment.

The report recommends early interventions to get children out of child labour and into school as well as measures to facilitate the transition from school to decent work opportunities for young people.

Particular attention should be given to the 47.5 million young people aged 15-17 in hazardous work and the special vulnerabilities of girls and young women.

“National policies should be directed towards removing children and young people from hazardous jobs and, of course, towards removing the hazards in the workplace,” Ryder said.

The ILO’s most recent estimate is that 168 million children are in child labour, with 120 million of them aged 5-14. The report underscores the critical importance of intervening early in the life cycle against child labour…