MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
More than 100 million children around the world wake up and, instead of heading to school, they go to work, often on farms or in mines. A new report shows progress has been made in reducing child labor, but a path to eliminating it entirely is elusive. Here's NPR global health correspondent Fatma Tanis.
FATMA TANIS, BYLINE: In 2024, 138 million children around the world were sent to work.
CLAUDIA CAPPA: These are children who work under the hot sun in farms, tending crops, when they should be in school.
TANIS: That's Claudia Cappa, senior adviser at UNICEF and one of the authors of the new report. Fifty-four million of those children were in hazardous work environments.
CAPPA: They are scrubbing floors behind closed doors, where they are extremely vulnerable to violence and exploitation. There are children who carry very heavy loads in mines, breathing in fumes that damage their health.
TANIS: Sending their children to work instead of school is a survival strategy for many families who are living in extreme poverty. Still, the report shows a lot of progress has been made. There's been a 20 million reduction in the number of working children since 2020. Much of that progress is seen in Asia where social protections like giving cash to families in poverty have helped kids stay in school.
CAPPA: Now, the case of Africa is a little bit more complex.
TANIS: Especially in sub-Saharan Africa, progress has been much slower. The prevalence of child labor dropped only a few percentage points since 2008. One reason is the child population is growing, but there aren't enough schools for them. Theresa Betancourt is the director of the Program on Children and Adversity at Boston College.
THERESA BETANCOURT: There was great progress being made globally in access to quality education. I think we've seen less of this in the very poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
TANIS: And without schools, families send kids to work instead. There's also ongoing and emerging conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, which adds more burden to families struggling to survive. For UNICEF's Claudia Cappa, the issue of child labor is a personal one. Her own mother worked cleaning houses and farming in the south of Italy when she was 9 years old.
CAPPA: I didn't have the same level of pressure. I was able to go to school. I was able to graduate, to apply for a position in UNICEF, to come to the United States and to speak to you today.
TANIS: Progress is possible, Cappa says, but only if both governments and families invest in the future of children.
Fatma Tanis, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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