12th of June: “Social Justice for All. End Child Labour!”

According to the UN, although the world had been making progress on eradicating child labour, a series of international events (the COVID pandemic and conflicts worldwide) are unabling economic growth and therefore pushing families to send their children to labour, mostly in Africa and in the Asia-Pacific region. In this sense, the international community has established the 12th of June as the World Day Against Child Labour. The initiative aims at raising awareness about the topic and its relation with global social justice, as well as tackling the roots that cause the exploitation of around 160 million children worldwide, which corresponds to nearly 1 out of 10 kids in the world.

The words of this special day are will and determination: the UN believes that it is possible to eliminate child labour worldwide, if only these two elements are present when addressing the situation. Specifically, the UN is calling for two main actions: a refreshed international action in the light of global social justice and the universal ratification of the International Labour Organization Convention n. 138 on the Minimum Age for work, which establishes that State Parties can define a minimum age for child labour, but in any case it should be less than 15 years.

The theme of this year is ‘Social Justice for All. End Child Labour!’, to emphasize the link between social justice and child labour.

Find out more about this special day here.

Last update

12/6/2023