2021 declared International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has unanimously adopted a resolution declaring 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, and has asked the International Labour Organization to take the lead in its implementation.

The resolution highlights the member States’ commitments “to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.”

As one of the original signatories to and an active member of the ILO Regional Initiative for Latin America and the Caribbean Free of Child Labour (RI), Trinidad and Tobago has pledged its commitment to meeting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 8.7 in order to eradicate child labour in all of its forms by 2025.  

The country’s efforts to achieve this target include:

• ratifying the two fundamental ILO Conventions related to child labour – the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182);
• ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which refers to the economic exploitation of children as a rights violation;
• making financial allocations for child labour-related research, public awareness and other interventions;  
• establishing an inter-ministerial, national child labour commission; and
• collaborating with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) to gather statistical data that will be used to craft a child labour policy as a sub-set of the national child policy in the coming year.