In light of the current pandemic and the official launch of the 2021 UN International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour on 21 January, the following public statement comes from a large number of prominent professors and researchers, supported by many experienced practitioners of development NGOs and agencies and working children themselves. At the heart of the statement lies an urgent call for more realistic and evidence-based approaches to child labour to be developed in dialogue with the research community and working children and their families.
It has become painfully clear that the COVID-19 pandemic does not affect all equally. Children are particularly vulnerable to the physical, psychological, social, and economic effects the pandemic has caused. Apart from disruption to education and lack of internet access, severe mental health problems can arise from extended isolation while growing up. Furthermore, UNICEF has warned us that COVID-19 has compounded food crises resulting from conflicts, disasters, and climate change to turn a nutritional crisis into an imminent catastrophe threatening millions of children in the immediate future.
Post-COVID recovery is unlikely to return children to pre-COVID conditions: disrupted and increasingly unequal economies, climate change, and growing land and water shortages are likely to make children’s lives increasingly precarious. Many families have been forced to include their children in efforts to obtain the necessities for life, which can result in extensive and even dangerous work, sometimes making schooling impossible. There is thus an urgent need to provide long-term supporting interventions to improve the lives and chances of these children.
