Child Labor Robs Children of Their Futures
Despite progress toward eliminating child labor worldwide, millions of children are still being denied their right to learn, play, and simply be children. UNICEF works alongside partners to protect children from child labor, among other forms of exploitation and abuse. Learn more, including how to help.
What is child labor?
Child labor is defined as work that is done by someone who is too young, or work that, based on the nature or circumstances, is harmful to a child's physical or mental health, social or educational development.
Agriculture remains the largest sector for child labor, accounting for 61 percent of all cases, followed by services like domestic work and selling goods in markets (27 percent) and industry including mining and manufacturing (13 percent).
What are the risks for a child laborer?
A child engaged in hazardous work risks bodily and mental harm, even death. Child labor can lead to slavery and sexual or economic exploitation. In nearly every case, it cuts children off from schooling and health care, restricting their fundamental rights.
Learn more about how UNICEF works to safeguard children's rights
How prevalent is child labor?
There were an estimated 138 million children engaged in child labor in 2024, according to UNICEF and the International Labor Organization (ILO). Boys are more likely than girls to be involved in child labor at every age, but when unpaid household chores of 21 hours or more per week are included, the gender gap reverses.
While the latest data show a total reduction of over 20 million children since 2020, reversing a previous spike, the world has missed its target of eliminating child labor by 2025.
In the world's poorest countries, slightly more than 1 in 5 children aged 5 to 17 are engaged in labor that is considered detrimental. Sub-Saharan Africa carries the heaviest burden, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all children in child labor, or around 87 million. While prevalence fell from roughly 1 in 4 to closer to 1 in 5, the total number is unchanged against the backdrop of population growth, ongoing and emerging conflicts, extreme poverty and stretched social protection systems.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, child labor rates are much lower, at 1 in 20. The Asia and the Pacific region saw its child labor rate decline from 6 percent to 3 percent between 2020 and 2024 (49 million to 28 million children).
What drives child labor worldwide?
Most often child labor is a product of poverty. It often occurs when families are facing financial insecurity due to a sudden illness or job loss.
Migrant and refugee children – many of whom have been uprooted by conflict, disaster or other emergency – also risk being forced into work and even trafficked, especially if they are migrating alone or taking irregular routes with their families.
Trafficked children are often subjected to violence, abuse and other human rights violations. For girls, the threat of sexual exploitation looms large, while armed forces or groups may exploit boys.
Is child labor a problem in the United States?
Yes — child labor is a growing problem in the United States due to higher living costs and an expanding population of vulnerable children.
UNICEF USA developed a compliance framework to help companies address child labor violations in the U.S. corporate supply chain. Designed for a broad range of stakeholders — including legal and compliance, supply chain, sustainability and human resources professionals — the framework aligns with international standards and covenants as well as U.S. regulatory guidance.
Related: Child-Centered Solutions to Address Child Labor in the U.S. — a UNICEF USA report
Related: Children's Rights and Business
Are there laws against child labor?
The issue of child labor is guided by two International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions — ILO Convention No. 138, which sets a minimum age for employment, and ILO Convention No. 182, which prohibits and calls for immediate action to eliminate the worst forms of child labor — and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
These conventions frame the concept of child labor and form the basis for child labor legislation enacted by signatory nations.
Video: Child labor in Yemen — one boy's experience
In Yemen, the number of out-of-school children has doubled due to protracted armed conflict, which erupted in 2015 and has left more than 2 million school-age children out of the classroom, jeopardizing their futures.
In the city of Taizz, in Yemen's southwest, 12-year-old Anas's childhood effectively ended the day his father died. That's when he became his family's sole breadwinner.
I stopped studying because there is no one to support my family. — Anas of Taizz, Yemen, age 12
Working from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. in an iron workshop leaves little time for studying, so Anas was forced to drop out of school. But he is determined that his younger brothers continue their educations so they can fulfill their dreams.
"I stopped studying because there is no one to support my family," he says. "I made my four brothers study ... so that they graduate from universities and get jobs."
UNICEF is on the ground in Yemen, working with partners to protect children like Anas and his brothers, so they have the opportunity to reach their full potential.
Learn more about how UNICEF supports and protects children in Yemen
UNICEF: working with partners to eliminate child labor and safeguard children's rights
To accelerate progress toward reducing and ultimately eliminating all forms of child labor, UNICEF and ILO call on governments to:
- invest in social protection for vulnerable households, including social safety nets such as universal child benefits, so families do not resort to child labor
- strengthen child protection systems to identify, prevent, and respond to children at risk, especially those facing the worst forms of child labor
- provide universal access to quality education, especially in rural and crisis-affected areas, so every child can learn
- ensure decent work for adults and youth, including workers’ rights to organize and defend their interests
- enforce laws and business accountability to end exploitation and protect children across supply chains.
UNICEF helps keep children safe from child labor by:
- supporting vulnerable families with multipurpose humanitarian cash transfers, which can be used to help cover school fees and basic household expenses, easing income pressures on parents — and helping them avoid negative coping mechanisms like sending children to work
- working to improve children's access to formal or non-formal education and providing learning materials and other support to students, teachers and classrooms to ensure quality
- working with governments to adopt and implement laws, regulations and policies that protect children from child labor and other forms of exploitation and abuse
“The world has made significant progress in reducing the number of children forced into labor," UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said. "Yet far too many children continue to toil in mines, factories or fields, often doing hazardous work to survive.
We must recommit to ensuring that children are in classrooms and playgrounds, not at work. — UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell
"We know that progress towards ending child labor is possible by applying legal safeguards, expanded social protection, investment in free, quality education and better access to decent work for adults. Global funding cuts threaten to roll back hard-earned gains. We must recommit to ensuring that children are in classrooms and playgrounds, not at work.”
How to support efforts to stop child labor
Sustained and increased funding – both global and domestic – is needed more than ever if recent gains against child labor are to be maintained. Cuts in foreign aid are impacting education, social protection and other humanitarian programs, threatening to push already vulnerable families to the brink — forcing some to send their children to work. Meanwhile, shrinking investment in data collection will make it harder to see and address the issue.
HOW TO HELP
There are many ways to make a difference
War, famine, poverty, natural disasters — threats to the world's children keep coming. But UNICEF won't stop working to keep children healthy and safe.
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories — more places than any other children's organization. UNICEF has the world's largest humanitarian warehouse and, when disaster strikes, can get supplies almost anywhere within 72 hours. Constantly innovating, always advocating for a better world for children, UNICEF works to ensure that every child can grow up healthy, educated, protected and respected.
Would you like to help give all children the opportunity to reach their full potential? There are many ways to get involved.
