The Citizen reports that according to President Cyril Ramaphosa, no country and economy can consider itself to be at the forefront of progress if its success and riches have been built on the backs of children.

He was delivering an address at the Fifth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, held in partnership with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Durban on Sunday. The conference, which is being hosted for the first time on African soil, will take place for the rest of the week. It will look at why millions of children are victims of exploitative labour practices, why this persists in some countries but less in others and what decisive interventions are needed to end these practices. “Child labour is an enemy of children’s development and an enemy of progress. We are here because we recognise the urgent need to put an end to a situation where millions of children across the world are losing their formative years to the burden of unfair responsibility,” said Ramaphosa. According to the ILO and Unicef, substantial progress has been made in addressing the worst forms of child labour exploitation. Despite this, the ILO says the effect of worsening poverty means that a further 8.9 million children are expected to be engaged in child labour by the end of 2022. “This threatens our efforts to eliminate child labour by 2025 as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This means that we need to intensify our efforts and tackle the challenges we still face with renewed purpose,” Ramaphosa said.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at The Citizen
• See too, SA lagging behind in ending child labour by 2023, says labour department, at EWN

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page