SDG #8 is to “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.”

Within SDG #8 are 12 targets, of which we here focus on Target 8.6:

Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms

Target 8.7 has one indicator:

• Indicator 8.7.1: Proportion and number of children aged 5–17 years engaged in child labour, by sex and age

First, at the time of writing, we’re six months shy of 2025, and haven’t ended child labour in all its forms, so this aspect of this target is already foregone.

This target encapsulates the work of several UN labour and human rights agreements protecting the welfare of children:

• International Labour Standards, overseen by the International Labour Organization

• 1973 Minimum Age Convention

• Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989

• Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict, adopted by the General Assembly in 1974

• ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work

• ILO Forced Labour Convention

• Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, adopted in 1956

• Slavery Convention, adopted in 1926

• Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention

As of 2020, UNICEF estimated 160 million children worldwide were in child labour, with an 8.4 million increase in the preceding four years.

The countries with the highest rates of child labour among those with data as of 2022 were Chad with 31% and Togo with 33%. Disaggregated by sex, in Togo, more boys were in child labour than girls by 3%, and in Chad, the gender difference was 6%. The biggest gender gap among countries with 2022 data was Senegal, with 8% of girls in labour and a quarter of boys.

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