Child Labour

Exploitive child labour is increasingly being recognised as a problem in Africa, and has been identified as a priority area of intervention on the continent. Poverty and HIV/AIDS raise vulnerability in children who are forced to abandon schooling to work in exploitive and hazardous situations.

Not all forms of child labour are equally harsh. The most severe forms of child labour are referred to as worst forms of child labour (WFCL) and include slavery, sexual exploitation, crime and hazardous work.

Child work is defined as exploitive when it has harmful effects on the child’s health, well being or development, and it interferes with child basic rights such as education. In excess, acceptable types of work become child labour. Exploitive child labour is not restricted to remunerated work, but also encompasses children who are working in their own homes, at school or in family businesses without any form of remuneration.



Examples of our recent and ongoing child labour projects include: