Child labour occurs in all sectors where the IUF has membership, but the agricultural sector faces the greatest challenges.
The IUF 28th Congress:
Notes that 71 % of child labour occurs in agriculture alone, and that worldwide, an estimated 112 million children work on farms and plantations;
Notes with concern that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, progress on elimination of child labour was slowing and that the commitments made by UN Member States to take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2025 in all its forms remain an aspiration;
Further notes that the prevalence of child labour is a result of parents’ poverty; when parents earn poverty wages from precarious forms of employment, they cannot afford to cover the basic needs of their children, including food and education.
Reaffirms that the root causes of poverty are avoidable and that strong and effective trade unions represent an essential pre-condition to eliminating child labour by organizing agricultural workers and pulling them out of poverty though bargaining for better working conditions and wages, and access to education for their children.
The IUF 28th Congress therefore:
- Calls on affiliates to commit to promote and use the IUF leaflet with demands in their work with governments, companies producing in agriculture and companies sourcing from agriculture as well as international organizations in order to end child labour in the agricultural sector.
- Calls on affiliates to ask governments to implement the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour (May 15-20, 2022, Durban, South Africa) Call to Action which includes a plan to tackle child labour in agriculture.
