This briefing marks World Day Against Child Labour, which take place every year on 12 June, to focus attention on the global extent of child labour, and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. It sets out the background to 2018 campaign, the International Labour organisation’s definition of child labour and statistics on the global prevalence of child labour. It also discusses the UK’s response to child labour and touches upon the UK’s domestic law and rules on employment undertaken by children.
World Day Against Child Labour: 12 June 2018 (260 KB , PDF)
The International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the World Day Against Child Labour in 2002, and takes place every year on 12 June, to focus attention on the global extent of child labour, and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. For 2018, the day will focus on the need to end child labour, and to improve the safety and health of young workers as part of a joint global campaign with the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, described together as ‘Generation Safety and Health’. The campaign calls for a number of co-ordinated actions, including to: promote universal ratification and application of key ILO legal instruments on child labour and occupational health and safety; promote integrated strategies to end ‘hazardous’ child labour and address health and safety risks faced by young workers; integrate occupational health and safety into education and vocational training programmes; and address the vulnerabilities of the youngest children and prevent their entry into child labour.
‘Child labour’ refers to work that is “mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children”; and interferes with their schooling by “depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, obliging them to leave school prematurely or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work”. According to the UN, 218 million children worldwide between 5 to 17 years old are in employment and among them, 152 million are victims of child labour. In relation to the type of work they may undertake, the UN states that child labour is “concentrated primarily” in agriculture (71 percent), which includes fishing, forestry, livestock herding and aquaculture, and comprises both subsistence and commercial farming; 17 percent in services; and 12 percent in the industrial sector, including mining.
On 19 September 2017, during the 72nd Meeting of the UN General Assembly, 37 member states and observer states, including the United Kingdom, endorsed a Call to Action to end forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking. At the summit in End Violence Against Children Solutions Summit in February 2018, Penny Mordaunt, Secretary of State for International Development, stated that “we must strive to ensure that no child, no one, is harmed by the people who are supposed to be there to help” and announced her support by contributing £5 million to the End Violence Against Children partnership, which sees the UK “teaming up with the biggest group of stakeholders […] to keep children safe”.
World Day Against Child Labour: 12 June 2018 (260 KB , PDF)
This briefing is the fifth of a series on the post-war history of the UK economy. The series proceeds decade-by-decade from the 1950s onwards, providing an overview of the key macroeconomic developments of each decade. This fifth briefing looks at the 1990s. In this decade the UK economy settled into a period of low inflation and steady growth; however, living standards growth was lower and more regionally concentrated than in previous decades.
The Labour government has set out its short- and long-term plans to reduce the pressure on prison capacity in England and Wales. This includes releasing eligible prisoners on licence into the community after they have served 40% of their sentence and building more prisons. Organisations have highlighted the risk of prison overcrowding on prisoner wellbeing. Some charities have called for better mental health support for prisoners whilst in custody and on release.
The Budget Responsibility Bill would require ministers to request an assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for every major fiscal announcement and give the OBR the power to decide to publish one if the minister failed to request it. This follows the September 2022 ‘mini-budget’. The statement included plans that would have resulted in a projected £45bn reduction in tax income. It did not have an accompanying OBR assessment.
