World Day Against Child Labour to be observed on June 12

Islamabad: The World Day Against Child Labour will be observed on June 12 (Wednesday) to raise awareness of the plight of child laborers worldwide. Hundreds of millions of girls and boys around the world are affected, child labor is a problem in both developing and industrialized countries.

Every year, numerous events held around the world on June 12 to mark the World Day Against Child Labour and call attention to the problem. The World Day Against Child Labour is a global observance, Child labor is especially rampant in many developing countries but even in industrialised nations many children are forced to work.

According to UNICEF, children in the United States are employed in agriculture, a high proportion of them from immigrant or ethnic-minority families. “There have also been a number of incidents of westerns companies exploiting child laborers in developing countries to save production costs.”

In 2011, there were an estimated 215 million child laborers in the world - 115 million of which were involved in hazardous work.