There is a perception in the West that child labour is an issue confined to a small handful of industries and parts of the world. However, according to HACE founder Eleanor Harry, the problem goes much deeper.
“It’s not just a sub-Saharan African or South Asian problem,” Harry says. “There’s about three million children in high-income countries that are in child labour.”
Defined as work that is mentally, physically, socially or emotionally harmful to children and interferes with their education, child labour is alarmingly on the rise.
Global estimates from the International Labour Organisation and UNICEF from 2020 suggested that child labour had grown by eight million cases over the four years prior, resulting in a total of around 160 million children experiencing it – close to 10% of the total population of children....