All in one contest Writing edition Week 38||Literature: World day against child labour||Theme: Red card to child labour ; Fair play for children, decent work for adults

INTRODUCTION

This year 2026 child labour day is here again. It is a day calling for a decisive actions aimed at combating child labour prevailing in our society today. This statement comes from the 6th global conference calling for the elimination of child labour. The meeting held in marrakech, came up with strong decisive agreement that would swiftly address the need to expedite efforts and bring those required efforts into meaningful and visible results.

The Marrakech Global Framework for Action against Child Labour formed a strong roadmap and pointers which would help to tackle child labour through combined actions that provide solutions to the fundamental causes and protect the rights of every child.

This year's theme against child labour

The title for this year's action against child labour is: “Red card to child labour: Fair play for children, decent work for adults”. It calls for a combined efforts to prevent all players engaging in child labour from doing so. It then calls for more support in the following provision of the:

• Quality education
• Universal social security
• A decent work and more beneficial means of livelihood for adults and parents
• A more stronger laws and strict enforcement
• Better data collection and monitoring frameworks
• Good agriculture practices and supply systems

All these requires immediate actions to be taken. Even though some progress has been made, a huge number of children has been in the custody of child labour. It is reported that a whooping 138 million children are in child labour globally, and close to 54 million among them are engaged in various works that causes hazards to their health and otherwise.

The continuous rising and widespread of child labour

Reports indicate that from the year 2000, child labour has slowly reduced. Figures show that from about 246 million recorded, it has reduced to about 138 million. This is a progress made but not encouraging as it shows that the rate of prevention is at a slow pace. It falls below the global child labour elimination target. The report poses that to end the child labour in the next five years, the current efforts need to be redoubled at about 11 times at a faster pace than before.

In the sub-saharan African nations, the reports also has it that the region has the heaviest burden of child labour. The region posts about ⅔ of the children engaged in child labour, about 87 million children are involved which represents a short fall from 24% to 22% in widespread rate. In the face of population growth, continued conflicts, rising extreme poverty, and the falling social security, the figure has remained fixed.

There is significant progress made in curbing child labour in the Pacific and Asian countries from the year 2020. Since 2020, child labour in the region has reduced from 6% to 3% showing a drop from 49 million to 28 million in widespread.

The report also gathered that in the Caribbean and Latin America, the child labour has remained fixed in past four years as the total number of children involved in child labour stepped low from about 8 million to about 7 million children.

Also gathering from the reports in the UN's records, agriculture continues to be the largest sector in child labour. The Agric sector records 61% of all child labour engagement. Domestic work engagements records 27%, while selling of goods in markets and other related industry posts 13 %, which also involves the mining and manufacturing sub-sectors.

Ways to expedite progress on child labour prevention

The UN through the arms of the United Nations Children education and emergency fund (UNICEF), and the International labour organization (ILO ) are urging governments at all levels globally to use this day to urgently address child labour cases through the following means:

Making heavy Investments in social protection for vulnerable households, including social safety nets like universal child benefits, so as to make families not to engage in child labour practices

• To Strengthen their child protection framework to help in identifying, preventing and responding to vulnerable children, with more attention to those undergoing the worst forms of child labour.

• There should be Provision of universal access to quality education, with more attention given to those in rural and crisis-affected areas, so that every child would have to learn.

• Take a move to nsure a decent work for adults, parents and youths. worker's rights and welfare, to also enable them organize and defend their interests.

• Strict enforcement of laws and ensure business accountability so as to end the exploitation of children and protect children across the globe from child labour.

Finally on this World Day Against Child Labour, let us raise the Red card against child labour. Let's mobilize, speak out and act to turn the outlined measures and commitments into real change for our children, our families and across every communities.