Efforts by companies to reduce under-age working have been partly
credited for the first measured decline in child labour across the
globe.
The International Labour Organization reports that the
number of child labourers fell by 11 per cent between 2000 and 2004,
from 246 million to 218 million. It now believes the worst forms of
child labour – in the most hazardous occupations – can be eliminated in
ten years.
The ILO says that the ‘marked’ decline is mainly the
result of increased political will, poverty reduction strategies and
educational projects, but adds that the efforts of companies,
especially when in partnership with others, have begun to have an
impact. It believes that companies are most effective when working
together in sectoral initiatives – such as the tobacco industry’s End
Child Labour in Tobacco coalition – rather than alone.
Geir
Myrstad, project leader for the ILO’s International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labour, told EP that the private sector had played
‘a very important role’ in combating child labour, but that ‘it would
be a good thing for companies to rationalize what they are doing and
work in broader alliances, instead of having a company-by-company
system.’
He added that multinational agrobusinesses in
particular needed to be vigilant. Seven out of ten of the world’s child
labourers work within the agricultural sector.
