Human-centred approach key to eliminating child labour

• Published date: 16 May 2022
• Publication title: South African Official News

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director-General, Guy Ryder, has reiterated the call to 'rescue' the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), saying this should start in Durban.

Ryder said this during the opening session of the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour at Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (ICC) in Durban on Sunday.

According to the United Nations, the SDGs are designed to end poverty, hunger, AIDS, and discrimination against women and girls.

The SDGs, also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030, all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

Ryder said the fifth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour is the first to be held in Africa, and the last one before the 2025 deadline for the elimination of child labour, set under the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

'We are in the right place, at the right time. The right place because Africa is the continent from where the solutions to the global child labour challenge will emerge.

'The political commitment, policy innovations, and coordinated regional action, in the face of challenges perhaps steeper than in any other region, are evidence of that. Africa is an incubator for approaches to tackling child labour that the rest of the world can benefit from,' Ryder said.

"[We are at the right time] because the worldwide movement against child labour just received a wakeup call.

"Child labour has actually increased for the first time since we started measuring it 20 years ago. Today, there are 160 million children in child labour, half of them in work that puts their health, safety and moral development at risk; 89 million are very young - 5 to 11 years -...