Written by Silvia González Vidal.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) introduced the World Day Against Child Labour in 2002. The day is observed annually on 12 June. The 2026 World Day focuses on reinforcing and accelerating actions aimed at preventing and eliminating child labour, with a key message: ‘Red Card to Child Labour: Fair play for children, decent work for adults’.
The United Nations (UN) defines child labour as work performed by children under the minimum legal age specified for that kind of work, or work that, because of its hazardous nature or detrimental conditions, is prohibited. Forms of work that are beneficial to a child’s personal and social development, that do not interfere with schooling, but rather provide useful experience and skills, may be encouraged. Child labour is driven by poverty, paired with a lack of access to decent work for adults and young people, weak social protection and a lack of free, high-quality public education.
Addressing root causes and advancing social justice were at the heart of the Sixth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, held in Morocco in February 2026, in the context of the failure to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 8.7 on ending child labour by 2025. The Conference adopted the Marrakech Global Framework for Action against Child Labour, a renewed roadmap aimed at eliminating child labour by 2030 through a human rights-based approach centred on social dialogue and multi-sectoral cooperation. The Marrakech commitments prioritise aligning national legal frameworks with international labour standards, ensuring universal access to quality education, and expanding social protection systems. They also highlight the unique challenges within the African region, the agricultural sector, one of the largest for child labour, and the emerging threat of online exploitation.
The 2026 World Day Against Child Labour comes after the Sixth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour. Building on the Marrakech commitments, the 2026 campaign carries the message ‘Red Card to Child Labour: Fair play for children, decent work for adults‘, highlighting the link between child labour, poverty, and the lack of adequate work opportunities for adults. At the same time, it emphasises the shared responsibility of governments, employers, workers’ organisations, businesses and consumers, aiming to encourage governments and international partners to translate the Marrakech commitments into concrete national measures ahead of the 2030 deadline.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, 138 million children worldwide are still affected by child labour, with nearly 54 million exposed to hazardous work. In response, the 2026 campaign advocates for stronger action to prevent child labour and support the withdrawal and rehabilitation of affected children through access to quality education, universal social protection, decent work and sustainable livelihoods for adults, strengthened legal frameworks and enforcement mechanisms, improved data collection and monitoring systems, as well as responsible practices across agriculture and global supply chains.
Freedom from child labour is a fundamental human right, enshrined in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998), the ILO Conventions and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). ILO Convention No 138 on the minimum age, adopted in 1973, has been ratified by 177 countries, including all EU Member States. This key document lays down standards for the minimum age for employment. ILO Convention No 182 on the worst forms of child labour, adopted in 1999, has been ratified by 187 countries, including all EU Member States. It calls on members to take measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency. These include all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery; commercial sexual exploitation or illicit activities; and work likely to harm children. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has been ratified by 196 countries, including all EU Member States. The CRC confers upon children the right to protection from economic exploitation, and urges parties to set a minimum age for employment, regulate working hours and conditions, and provide for penalties. Despite international commitments made by nearly all United Nations member states, 41 countries still lack important legal protections against children doing work that could be harmful or interfere with their education.
The EU’s firm commitment to eliminating child labour is enshrined in Article 32 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, which prohibits the employment of children and states that the minimum age of employment may not be lower than the minimum school-leaving age. Moreover, young people admitted to work must have working conditions appropriate to their age and be protected against economic exploitation and any work likely to harm their safety, health or physical, mental, moral or social development or to interfere with their education.
The main legal instrument prohibiting child labour in the EU is Council Directive 94/33/EC. It allows Member States to set a minimum age for employment below the minimum school-leaving age only exceptionally. The EU action plan on human rights and democracy (2020-2027) calls for stronger child protection systems and a zero-tolerance policy on child labour. Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 on prohibiting products made with forced labour on the Union market further contributes to this goal. In 2024, the European Commission also adopted a recommendation on developing and strengthening integrated child protection systems in the best interests of the child, as a commitment in the EU strategy on the rights of the child, prompting Member States to adopt an integrated approach in their external action, under the aim of eradicating child labour.
The European Parliament has repeatedly condemned child labour and its various forms, both within and outside the EU, through a number of resolutions. In its February 2020 resolution on child labour in mines in Madagascar, Parliament stressed that the EU’s long-term budget should reflect its commitment to eliminating the worst forms of child labour. In its March 2021 resolution on children’s rights in view of the EU strategy on the rights of the child, Parliament also urged the Commission and Member States to eradicate child labour and all forms of work harmful to children’s health, safety and development. Later that year, in its resolution on sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour, Parliament advocated banning imports of products linked to severe human rights violations, including child labour, and stressed that combating such practices should be systematically reflected in EU free trade agreements. In the same vein, Parliament further reinforced provisions aimed at preventing forced and child labour in global supply chains during negotiations on the directive on corporate sustainability due diligence, adopted in 2024. Finally, in its 2022 resolution on new EU rules on products made with forced labour, Parliament called for stronger cooperation with international partners committed to eradicating forced labour globally and banning goods produced under forced labour conditions. In addition, Parliament’s Coordinator on Children’s Rights, currently Vice-President Ewa Kopacz, acts as a central contact point to help ensure that children’s rights are systematically integrated into EU policies and legislation.
This is a further update of an ‘At a glance’ note, the previous edition of which was by Yanis Stefanou, in 2025.
Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘World Day Against Child Labour‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.
Courtesy of Caroline Chirichella.
My children bring me more joy than anything else. It's not an exaggeration when I say that I would do anything to make them happy.
Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a mother. I played with baby dolls and treated them as though they were real. My dream was never to have a big, fancy job or travel the world. I wanted to be a mom.
That dream came true in 2018, when my daughter was born. Five years later, my son came into the world, and my heart grew in ways I hadn't known were possible. My children are my greatest blessing, the loves of my life, and the source of a happiness I had imagined since childhood.
They are also my biggest burden.
I know my words might sound harsh. How can the people you love most in the world also be a burden? Before you judge, let me explain.
I am happily married and have been for going on 10 years. I have a thriving business, I have friends and hobbies, and we travel quite a bit as a family. I have many things in my life to be grateful for.
But none of those things bring me the kind of happiness, pure joy, and love that my children do.
But along with that kind of love comes something else. A burden, if you will. As long as I am a mother, I will worry about my children. It doesn't matter how old they get or how far away they go. They will always be a part of me, and a part of my mind will always be occupied by them.
The worries will change, of course. Today, I might worry that they will fall at the park, come home crying about a bad grade, or have a fight with a friend.
Tomorrow, I may worry about whether they can find a job, if they are happy in their relationships, or whether they are struggling under the weight of life.
The older they get, the more I will have to accept that there are parts of their lives I cannot see, decisions I cannot make for them, and difficulties I cannot always help them overcome.
That is the hardest part. I can love them, guide them, support them, and do everything in my power to protect them. But I cannot guarantee that they will always be happy. I cannot shield them from every disappointment or make sure that life will be kind to them.
This is the burden I am talking about. Not my children themselves, but the weight of loving them so deeply that their happiness and well-being will always matter to me.
I will never stop thinking about my children. In that sense, motherhood is a mental burden. It is the constant awareness of someone else's well-being, the knowledge that there will always be someone to worry about, even when there is nothing immediately wrong.
Sometimes, I think about the freedom of having a mind that belongs entirely to you. To be able to sit quietly, enjoy a moment, or make plans without a part of your mind wandering toward the people you love and wondering whether they are OK.
If I had only myself to worry about, I would surely still have problems, fears, and anxieties. Life would not suddenly become easy. But there is a difference between worrying about yourself and worrying about someone else, especially someone you brought into this world.
There is no real escape from this responsibility. I can be on holiday, enjoying a beautiful day, or sitting quietly with nothing pressing to do, and still find my thoughts returning to my children. The responsibility does not disappear just because, in that moment, there is nothing I need to do.
Motherhood takes away a certain kind of freedom, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't give up the joy, the love, or the privilege of watching them grow just to reclaim that part of myself that existed before I became a mother.
But I can acknowledge that something has changed. Becoming a mother has meant that I will never again experience life in quite the same way. My heart is no longer concerned only with my own happiness. It is tied to two other people, and it will remain so for the rest of my life until the day I take my final breath.
Maybe this is what it means to be a mother: to carry a love so great that it brings you your greatest happiness, and your greatest worry, all at once.
The BBC has pulled material from its Bitesize educational website, used by 1.7 million pupils a week, after it was caught rewarding kids for backing open borders and pushing Left-wing views on migration and Net Zero.
The post BBC Bitesize Pulls Left-Wing Material Pushing Extreme Views on Migration and Net Zero appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Children as young as five are being suspended for sexual misconduct, with schools in England recording 7,278 suspensions last year – nearly 40 every school day and a 12% jump on the previous year.
The post Pupils as Young as Five Suspended Over Sexual Misconduct appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
School resource officers (SROs) in Texas referred tens of thousands of elementary and middle schoolers for prosecution for relatively minor misconduct over the last decade, a news investigation found.
An analysis by The New York Times and the San Antonio Express-News reported that, as the number of SROs in Texas grew, children in Texas ages 10 to 13 were referred to prosecution for misbehaving in school more than 47,000 times since 2014. A referral doesn't necessarily result in charges being filed, but each one represents a minor being taken into police custody and put in contact with the criminal justice system, which can have long-lasting educational, emotional, and financial impacts for students and their families.
"Most of the students were accused of minor offenses, like making threats, using cannabis vapes or lashing out at classmates or teachers," the papers reported. "Few caused serious physical harm."
Among the examples cited by the Times and Express-News were an 11-year-old who bumped into a school counselor, a 10-year-old who said he saw someone on campus with a weapon, and a 10-year-old who kicked an assistant principal after his cellphone was taken away.
In one case, a 12-year-old girl who refused to go to the principal's office was handcuffed, arrested, and driven to the school police headquarters. "When she would not put her hand on a fingerprint machine, officers twisted her opposite arm behind her back until she screamed and complied, according to body camera footage," the outlets reported.
The analysis found that referrals of children 10 to 13 increased by a greater percentage than referrals of older students. (Children under 10 cannot be prosecuted under Texas law; many other states don't set a minimum age for delinquency.)
The two outlets published another joint investigation in May on how SROs in Texas schools have used heavy-handed tactics, including Tasers and pepper spray, against students over seemingly minor misconduct.
The findings mirror other recent studies. A report published in July by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Iowa found that, while SROs were placed in Iowa schools to keep students safe from violence, the threat they most commonly dealt with was illicit vaping.
The number of police in schools nationally dramatically increased in recent years, growing by 23 percent at high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools between 2018 and 2021, largely under the justification of stopping mass shootings and handling violent situations.
Organizations like the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) say that carefully selected, well-trained officers act as a filter and decrease arrests by building strong relationships within the school with staff and students.
Civil liberties groups and disability advocates have long argued that increases in school police and zero-tolerance policies for petty disturbances have fueled the "school-to-prison" pipeline and led to disproportionate enforcement against minorities and students with disabilities. Those groups have been aided by viral news stories of police arresting and assaulting school children.
Following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 and national calls for police reform, several major school districts across the country ended their SRO programs.
However, several states that experienced horrific school shootings, like Florida and Texas, moved in the opposite direction, passing laws that required police officers or armed guardians in public schools.
A 2020 Reason investigation described how Florida schools had become a high-stakes experiment in policing after Florida more than doubled the number of SROs across the state following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. A study published in 2020 found that after the increase, the number of Florida school arrests—which had been declining for years—suddenly started to rise. There was also a sharp increase in the use of physical restraint against students.
A 2021 working paper by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, which billed itself as the broadest and most rigorous examination at the school level of how SROs impact student outcomes, found that while SROs "do effectively reduce some forms of violence in schools," they did not prevent school shootings or gun-related incidents.
Another study by researchers at the University of Maryland and the firm Westat, who studied several dozen middle and high schools in California, found that increasing the number of SROs led to both immediate and persistent increases in the number of drug and weapon offenses and the number of suspensions and expulsions of students.
The post Texas School Police Referred Tens of Thousands of Children to Prosecutors for Minor Misbehavior appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Housing Rights and Public Policies Association (AHDPP) has explained exactly how the housing crisis is threatening Portugal’s very future. In an interview with Executive Digest, the association warns of the
The post “No one has children at their parents’ home”: association warns of impact of housing crisis on birth rate appeared first on Portugal Resident.
The BBC has been accused of using its Bitesize website to push open borders, Net Zero and woke ideology on children as young as 11, teaching them that more immigration is great and anyone who disagrees is likely a bigot.
The post BBC Bitesize Accused of ‘Brainwashing’ Schoolchildren with Left-Wing Views on Migration and Net Zero appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
More seven year-olds are on disability benefits than 50 year-olds amid a surge in payouts for childhood ADHD and other mental health conditions, official figures show.
The post More Seven Year-Olds on Disability Benefits Than 50 Year-Olds Amid ADHD Surge appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
For Boston Magazine, Kara Baskin explores a growing subculture of tweens and teens who don’t feel entirely human. Some identify as one animal, like a cat or a dog; others identify with multiple animals. One kid Baskin speaks to, Sol, says she “doesn’t summon the animals, but rather they come and go on their own schedule.” These young people call themselves therians (distinct from furries, who are fans of anthropomorphic animal characters). Baskin provides a fascinating glimpse into a world where adolescents can express themselves and explore their identities.
Bafflement is the baseline condition of raising kids right now. The adolescent quest for self-discovery is timeless—but today’s parents experimented in ways that were analog: new hairstyles, inscrutable music, beer snuck in the woods. Their own parents might not have liked it, but they could at least relate.
Now the landscape of adolescent discovery is literally foreign, thanks to social media, which has turbocharged once-obscure subcultures like the furry fandom—and, at its rarer edge, therianthropy—and redefined what “fringe” even means. Even if a kid is the only therian at school, she can find 400 more people just like her online. That’s one of the biggest challenges for parents in the algorithm age: The world your kid actually lives in is one you can’t enter. It touches the fear in every parent, therian kid or not: What happens when our kids inhabit a world we don’t understand, with idols we don’t recognize?
No doubt Ed Davey lovingly cares for his disabled son, says Joanna Gray. But he's not his "carer"; he's his father. It's a distinction Britain is fast losing sight of, to the detriment of us all.
The post No Ed Davey, You’re a Father, Not a “Carer” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
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