ILO, government scale up efforts to end child labour by 2025

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government has pledged its commitment to ensuring that child labour is eliminated by 2025.  The recently released 2021 National Labour Force Survey (NLFS), by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), indicated that 6.2 million (40%) of children aged 5 -17 years were in child labour (excluding household chores).

It showed that the largest share of this child labour is prevalent in the agriculture sector where children are employed as unpaid family workers. 19.5% of children in rural areas are engaged in child labour compared to 11.3% in urban areas.

Speaking at the launch of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Social Finance Model-A Fight Against Child Labour in Uganda in Kampala, Betty Amongi, the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development said that government will do whatever it takes to ensure that child labour is ended. “We all know that the prevalence of child labour increased substantially during COVID-19 from 21% to 36% (according to National Household Survey 2019/2020),” she said.

ILO launched the Social Finance Model through its project-accelerating action for the elimination of child labour in supply chains in Africa” (ACCEL Africa).