Welcome to the Child Labour Observatory!

The Child Labour Observatory (CLO) is a centralized hub for information on child labour in the 187 Member States of the ILO. worldwide. Established by the ILO, as called for in the Durban Call to Action on the Elimination of Child Labour, the CLO is a “one-stop shop” for data, legislation, policies and evidence of progress in the elimination of child labour.

The CLO supports policymakers, researchers, governments, social partners, the business community, civil society, development partners, international organizations and other stakeholders to understand the latest trends and policy developments in tackling child labour.

Key Features of the CLO

In the CLO’s navigation panel, you will have access to in-depth data on countries’ efforts to tackle child labour. Charts and other graphics allow users to analyse trends across an extensive set of indicators and to compare data between countries and regions.

The CLO has three main parts:

• Context. Review countries’ official statistics on child labour, as reported to the UN, and generate visual representations of data on children engaged in economic activities and household chores, categorized by age and sex.
• National legal framework. Access key features of national legislation such as the minimum age for work, hazardous work lists, and the prohibitions against forms of child labour such as trafficking of children and the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflicts.
• Policies and plans. Gain insights into policies and programmes, national strategies and action plans aimed at eradicating child labour.

The CLO uses official sources only and each dataset and entry is linked to its original source. Should you notice any missing or outdated information or encounter a broken link, please send a message with the relevant details to [email protected] .

What is Child Labour?

Child labour is defined by ILO’s Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138), and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182). It includes any work that is physically, mentally, socially, or morally dangerous and harmful to children, and/or 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.

We invite you to explore the CLO to better understand the extent ofchild labour and efforts to eliminate it across the globe. Through shared knowledge and collective action, we can make significant strides towards a world free of child labour.