School days are said to be the best days of our lives, but sadly this is not the case for the 246 million children between the ages of five and 17 who are forced to work to stay alive. Figures published in a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) show that one in six children are working, often in jobs that endanger their health and well-being.
'While there has been significant progress towards the effective abolition of child labour, the international community still faces a major uphill struggle against this stubbornly pervasive form of work that takes a tragic toll on millions of children around the world,' says the director-general of the ILO, Juan Somavia.
Children are having to work for many reasons. Poverty lies at the heart of the problem, with a child's wage often making the difference for a family between eating and not eating. The loss of parents to armed conflict or to AIDS and other illnesses means that children have to become breadwinners.
And employers' desire for a cheap and flexible workforce, coupled with inadequate social or legal protection, also forces children into working for little money and in the poorest of conditions.
Examples of the work children do include working in a tortilla bakery five days a week for 1.70 a day to pay for schooling, and making glass bangles inside a cramped, unventilated room for three hours for 65 pence a day so that the family can eat.
But the vast majority (some 80 per cent) of child labour goes without any pay at all. Small-scale, family enterprises, with low productivity and profitability, cannot afford adult paid labour.
Many children are also forced or tricked into leaving their homes and are transported across borders to become workers. Many trafficked children end up as unpaid domestic servants, sex workers, manual labourers and workers in sweatshops. They see nothing of the profits their traffickers make and they often live as prisoners, without access to education, health care or even proper food and shelter.
According to the report A future without child labour, 73 per cent of these children, approximately 180 million, are working in the worse forms of child labour - including hazardous work and prostitution.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for many girls selling sex is the only way to survive. Nana became a sex worker when she was ten after her stepmother threw her out of the house. Although she knew about HIV/AIDS, Nana didn't used condoms because her clients didn't like them. She felt she had to agree to their demands or else she wouldn't have had the money to eat. Now 16, Nana has given up sex work and is doing a tailoring training course, with the support of Save the Children.
'That so many children should be forced to work and endure the hardship and abuse that so often comes with it, is more than simply unacceptable,' says executive director of UNICEF Carol Bellamy. 'These children need to spend time learning and developing, not labouring in a desperate attempt simply to survive. We need to see decisive leadership from governments. They are signatories on international treaties banning such practices. It is well past time for them to live up to their obligations.'
It is very difficult for working children to seek help themselves, often because they have no birth certificates or official documents to show that they even exist. Organisations and charities, such as Save the Children and UNICEF, must work on their behalf. UNICEF works closely with the ILO, other United Nations agencies and non-governmental organisations advocating the implementation of ILO Convention 182, which prohibits the worst forms of child labour. UNICEF has been supportive in securing the ratification by more than 120 countries of Convention 182.
Save the Children is aware that simply banning child labour isn't the answer to the problem. It may not be feasible for a child to stop working altogether. Instead, the charity is battling to improve children's options and combat the root of the problem - poverty.
In Africa, Save the Children is improving conditions for child workers on commercial farms. It is also investigating the harsh conditions faced by child domestic workers and conducting research into rural work.
Education is also crucial for combatting child labour. Save the Children initiatives in Asia include alternative education projects, such as night schools for working children and credit and savings schemes. In the UK it is researching children's views about work and approaching UK-based international companies to explain their position on child labour.
UNICEF uses education in 30 countries as both a preventative and protective measure against child labour. For example, in Bangladesh UNICEF co-operated with the Ministry of Education to provide basic non-formal education to 350,000 of the poorest urban children who are exposed to hazardous work.
At Westminster, the secretary of state for international organisation, Clare Short, reminds us that it is a problem that affects all of us. 'We believe that everybody has an interest and a role to play - governments, international organisations, businesses, civil society, the media and the British public. With your help and support we believe it is possible to liberate these children from the drudgery that is denying them their childhood and their prospects for a decent future.'
More information
* Save the Children www.savethechildren.org.uk
* UNICEF www.unicef.org.uk
* International Labour Organisation www.ilo.org
Next month will also see the launch of the Campaign for the Abolition of Sweatshops and Child Labour. To get involved, visit www.abolishsweatshops.org
FACT FILE
Firm facts and figures on child labour are hard to come by. This is because most children work in informal, family-owned businesses beyond the reach of official statistics.
The following estimates are based on sample surveys around the world and figures on school attendance.
* The International Labour Organisation estimates that 20 million children aged five to 14 work full-time, and a further 130 million work part-time.
* About 61 per cent of working children live in Asia, 32 per cent in Africa and 7 per cent in Latin America.
* Most children work because of poverty. On average, working children bring in about 20-25 per cent of their family's income.
* Africa has the highest concentration of working children - one in three African children works full-or part-time.
* Only a small percentage of children work in the export sector (probably less than 5 per cent). Most children work in family-based agriculture, service industries (street trading and food), small-scale manufacturing and the sex trade.
* About 80 per cent of children's work is unpaid.