NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 12 — Rights groups and international organizations have renewed calls for urgent global action to end child labour, warning that millions of children continue to be denied their right to education, safety and a dignified childhood despite years of international commitments.

📻 Breaking It Down

Marking the World Day Against Child Labour on Friday, the United Nations revealed that nearly 138 million children worldwide remain engaged in child labour, including 54 million performing hazardous work that threatens their health, safety and development.

The global observance comes under the theme, “Red Card to Child Labour: Fair Play for Children, Decent Work for Adults,” a campaign aimed at rallying governments, employers, workers, businesses and civil society organizations to intensify efforts to eliminate child labour.

“This is a global emergency that demands urgent, sustained action,” the United Nations said in a statement. “On today’s World Day Against Child Labour, we should all raise the Red Card and do what we can to end child labour.”

📌 What You Need to Know

The UN noted that while progress has been made in reducing child labour over the years, the pace remains too slow to meet international targets, leaving millions of children vulnerable to exploitation in agriculture, mining, domestic work, manufacturing and other sectors.

The 2026 observance comes at a critical juncture following the Sixth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour held in Marrakech, Morocco, where governments and stakeholders reaffirmed their commitment to accelerate action and transform pledges into tangible outcomes.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the persistence of child labour is closely linked to poverty, lack of access to quality education, inadequate social protection systems and weak enforcement of labour laws.

ILO Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo described the continued existence of child labour on such a scale as unacceptable and called for accelerated implementation of measures designed to tackle its root causes.

“Today, nearly 138 million children remain in child labour, including 54 million in hazardous work. This is unacceptable – we must accelerate action,” Houngbo said.

He pointed to the Marrakech Global Framework for Action against Child Labour as a key roadmap for governments and development partners.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya