Zimbabwe celebrates the World Day Against Child Labour, with children still working in mines and farms three years before the Target 8.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end to child labour in all its forms by 2025. Countries celebrate the World Day Against Child Labour every year on 12 June 2022.
The age of maturity in Zimbabwe in 18 years.
A 2018 report by the Human Rights Watch showed that children work in hazardous conditions on the country’s tobacco farms performing tasks that threaten their health and safety or interfere with their education on the country’s tobacco farms.
Another research by the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association (Zela) in 2020 also indicates an increased in the number of children working in informal gold mines and also engaging in prostitution during the COVID-19 related lockdown.
COVID-19 Pandemic
The sub-Saharan African region, of which Zimbabwe is part of, has witnessed reversal on progress to ending child labour due to consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic
The Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW) says the COVID-19 pandemic eroded some of the progress achieved in reducing child labour.
“As countries took measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19, out of school children went to work to help support their families,” the organisation says.
“Growing economic insecurity and lack of access to education have been linked to child labour in the mines in countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe.”
A report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF states that 160 million girls and boys remain in child labour, half of whom are in hazardous work.
The report also says that child labour increased by 8.9 million, entirely among children aged 5-11 during the 2016-2020 period.
This year’s theme of the World Day Against Child Labour is “Universal Social Protection to End Child Labour”.
Target 8.7 under the SDG goal 8 for Decent Work and Economic Growth reads: “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.”
