He used to date the same day. I met my boyfriend’s girlfriend. The recently concluded 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labor that took place in South Africa reiterated the need to focus on prevention. This is particularly true for Africa – a young continent with a fast-growing population. If we don’t act now, we should expect 105 million children to be in child labor in Africa in 2025, worsening in the following years.
It is critical to tackling the root causes of child labor in our continent. These include the lack of access to free education; high levels of poverty and vulnerability of households; limited decent work opportunities for parents and young people, and very high levels of informality and inequalities. In Africa, four out of five children in child labor live in rural areas and work in agriculture, a sector where workers are often functionally dependent on the unpaid work of children.
In addition, Africa is one of the regions most affected by Briseis linked to conflict and disasters as well as climate change. The Durban Call to Action demands scaled-up action in six key areas to address these root causes, among which are: the need to ensure free quality education promote decent jobs for young people and adults, and to the need to invest in social protection as a means to reduce poverty and vulnerability.
