There are around 108 million children in the world who work in agriculture, warned the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) during the IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour held in Buenos Aires.

“There are 108 million children and teenagers in the world who work in agriculture, which represents 71% of the total share of child labour”, warned Junko Sazaki, director of the Social Policies and Rural Institutions Division of FAO.

The number of children and teenagers who are forced to work in rural areas has grown in 10 million during the past five years, pointed out the representative of the organization.

The predominance of child labour in agriculture “perpetuates the cycle of rural poverty among children and adolescents, their families and communities, it violates the principles of decent work and undermines the efforts made to reach sustainable food security and end hunger”, stated the organization.

To solve this growing problem, the governments, and particularly the ministers of agriculture, have the tools to help eliminate poverty, which is one of the causes of child labour.

“Backing up income generation, promoting better agriculture practices and improving risk management help promote more productive and safer employment”, said Bernd Seiffert, FAO’s specialist in Decent Rural Employment.

This information was revealed during the IV Conference, developed in Buenos Aires City by the Argentinian Ministry of Labour with the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The event, attended by 900 people representing 193 countries, has the goal of tackling child labour by 2025, according to the Goal 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN.

152 million children in the world are in situations of child labour and over 25 million people are victims of enforced labour, including 7.5 million of underage people, according to ILO.