(MENAFN- QNA) United Nations has announced it is marking the 2015 edition of the World Day Against Child Labour with a call for the international community to invest in quality education as a key step in the fight against child employment – a scourge that consumes over one hundred million children worldwide.
According to data from the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO), an estimated 168 million children around the world between the ages of five and 14 work, many full-time and more than half in conditions deemed hazardous to their health, keeping them out of school and ensuring that their hopes for a more prosperous future remain unrealized.
"As things stand, the aspirations of many parents for their children and of children themselves for a decent education will remain unfulfilled dreams," ILO Director-General Guy Ryder confirmed in his statement for the Day.
Many girls and boys have no chance to attend school. Some try to combine school and work, but all too often must drop out of school well before reaching the legal age of employment and become child laborers.
Despite some dramatic improvements which have seen the total number of child labourers shrink by one-third since the year 2000, the situation on the ground nevertheless remains dire. As a region, Asia and the Pacific still has the largest total numbers at 78 million but Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region with the highest incidence of child labour with some 59 million, or over 21% of the child population, engaged in work which, more often than note, entails long hours in agricultural and services industries.
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