Child Labour.
160 million children.
Could your due diligence be missing something?
160 million children are equivalent to:
48% of the population of the United States
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8x the population of London
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1,777x the capacity of Wembley Stadium
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48% of the population of the United States 〰️ 8x the population of London 〰️ 1,777x the capacity of Wembley Stadium 〰️
Definitions
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According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the term “Child Labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that:
is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and/or
interferes with their schooling by: depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.
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There are four classes of “Worst Forms of Child Labour”, as defined by ILO Convention 138. These include, separately, children working in Hazardous Working Conditions and Forced Child Labour, both of which are a violation of fundamental human rights and exist in the supply chains of companies operating in developed and developing economies.
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Hazardous Working Conditions for children, as defined by ILO Recommendation 190, encompass environments that pose significant risks to their health, safety, and moral development. These conditions include:
Exposure to physical, psychological or sexual abuse
Work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools, or which involves the manual handling or transport of heavy loads
Work underground, under water, at dangerous heights or in confined spaces
Work in an unhealthy environment which may, for example, expose children to hazardous substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations damaging to their health
Work under particularly difficult conditions such as work for long hours or during the night or work where the child is unreasonably confined to the premises of the employer.
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The definition of Forced Child Labour, according to ILO Convention 182, covers “all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict”.
Data
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Child Labour is currently estimated by the ILO to be at 160 million children aged 5-17 years globally, which equates to 1 in 10 children in the world.
This number increased by 8.4 million children between 2016 and 2020, and based on analysis at HACE, we predict the number will have increased again when new estimates are published in 2025.
89.3 million children in Child Labour are under the age of 12, violating both international and most domestic labour laws.
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49.4% of Child Labourers are in Hazardous Work. This number equates to 79 million children and increased by 6.5 million from 2016 to 2020.
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Only 2.06% of Child Labour overlaps with Forced Labour, meaning the majority of Child Labour is non-forced exploitation.
156.7 million children remain unprotected by legislation that focuses on Forced Labour, such as the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 .
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70% of Child Labour is in Agriculture, which often involves the production of raw Goods that feed in to global supply chains
1.6 million Child Labourers live in high-income economies. Additionally, 93.4 million Child Labourers, over half of all Child Labourers, live in either a lower-middle income or upper-middle income country
65% of Child Labourers aged 5-17 years old also attend school
63 million girls and 97 million boys are in Child Labour. Child Labour is more prevalent in boys than girls across all age groups, but when household chores are considered, the gender gap narrows from 2.8% to 1.6%
This data is all based on children aged 5-17 years old, despite recorded instances of Child Labour in children under 5 years old. This is one reason that means the data is likely to be an underestimation.
HACE specialises in addressing all forms of Child Labour within global supply chains.
How does Child Labour fit alongside Forced Labour and Modern Slavery?
When efforts are focused solely on Forced Labour and Modern Slavery in contexts of legislation, Governance, data collection and reporting, 156.7 million children in Child Labour are left unprotected, including 79 million children in Hazardous Working Conditions.
Recent research by HACE, analysing 458 country-commodity combinations, found that in 72.7% of cases, Child Labour risks exist independently of Forced Labour. This means that many companies and investors may have exposure without realising it.
“A child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier” - UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
“Worst Forms of Child Labour” As defined by Article 3, ILO Convention 182 - Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999
SOURCES: All data are estimates, taken from the International Labour Organization via “Child Labour: Global Estimates 2020, Trends and the Road Forward” and “Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage, 2022”
Distribution of Goods proven to be produced with Child Labour within Supply Chains
There are 151 Goods proven to be produced with Child Labour in global supply chains. No company with a supply chain is immune from this risk.
Child Labour typically occurs in deeper tiers of the supply chain, making it harder to detect; but it is not limited to only specific commodities or geographies. It is not often found in traditional auditing processes, as they rarely extend beyond Tier 1 suppliers.
For example, 112 million children grow and harvest global Raw Agricultural Crops such as Cotton, Rubber, Tea, Palm Oil and Vanilla.
Goods linked to Child Labour are distributed throughout all stages and sectors of all supply chains.