This cycle can be broken when workers have decent work, families have support, and children and youth have opportunities for education.
During the pandemic, it is more urgent that we address poverty as a driver of child labor. In 2020, COVID-19 pushed anestimated 97 million people into poverty. Because of this rise in poverty, UNICEF and the ILO estimatethat by the end of 2022, 9 million more children will fall into child labor.
At the U.S. Department of Labor, we are working globally to break this cycle, ending child labor and the poverty that drives it.
We help workers access decent work and services so kids don’t have to work.
When women and girls have opportunities for safe and decent work, they are less likely to stay in poverty. With skills training through the EMPOWERproject, vulnerable rural women and out-of-school adolescent girls in Zambia were able to start or grow businesses, which increased their household income. This income helped some women pay for children’s school fees, lowering the children's risk of engaging in child labor and increasing their odds of finding decent work in the future.
In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, theMATE MASIE and CACAOprojects will help cocoa producer cooperatives provide support to households vulnerable to poverty. This includes greater access to social services that can give families the resources they need to avoid sending their kids to work.
We provide youth with skills and opportunity to find
a path out of poverty.
Apprenticeship programs can be life-changing for vulnerable youth from historically disadvantaged communities, opening doors for higher levels of education and higher-paying jobs. In Argentina, theNoemiproject is increasing the number and quality of on-the-job training programs, like internships and apprenticeships, for youth from families experiencing poverty or youth engaged in or at risk of child labor. In addition to job skills, the programs include information on worker rights, including those specific to youth. Some 16 schools, 22 internship providers, and 12 civil society and governmental organizations have adopted the project’s workplace-based training model.
In Burma, when the pandemic hit, theMy-PEC project recognized the urgent need for villagers to not only protect themselves from the virus, but also earn money and reduce the risk of sending their children to work. The project collaborated with community leaders to train youth on how to make soap and reusable cloth masks and provided them with raw materials to start their own businesses. In just a few months, one group of trainees sold nearly one thousand masks and two thousand bars of soap across six villages, benefiting 1,943 households.
