A Growing Problem: The Pandemic’s Impact and the Challenge of Child Labor in Agriculture

The Covid-19 crisis brought the unprecedented loss of jobs and income for millions of families and massive school closures, forcing many children to enter the workforce. Please join the Child Labor Coalition and the International Labour Organization (ILO)/DC for an informative virtual event, “A Growing Problem: The Pandemic’s Impact and the Challenge of Child Labor in Agriculture,” featuring the release of new ILO estimates of global child labor and a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report based on children newly forced into child labor in Uganda, Ghana, and Nepal. We will explore solutions to the growing child labor numbers, as well as discuss the role race plays in child labor. We take a deeper dive into child labor in agriculture—where the majority of child laborers work. We will hear from a young survivor of child labor on American farms, a leader in the fight to fix America’s flawed child labor laws, a child labor expert on the challenges presented by West Africa’s cocoa sector, and a Ghanaian union leader working to create an environment that prevents child labor.