UN Child Labour Stats Discriminate Against Girls
On World Day Against Child Labour, Recognize that Child Marriage is Child Labour
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 10, 2021: On the World Day Against Child Labour on June 12, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF report that the number of underage children illegally put to work worldwide has risen to 160 million—an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years.
Those statistics, however, are incomplete—and discriminatory. Inexplicably, girls who work day and night as "wives" in illegal child marriages are not counted as child labourers. This ignores the fact that their endless, dangerous work lives, including the regular provision of sexual services to illegal "husbands," fit every criterion not only of child labour, but of its worst, most hazardous forms.
The new ILO and UNICEF report states, "Child labour is more prevalent among boys than girls at every age." Such institutional blindness and unwitting discrimination against girls have real-world consequences for 12 million additional girls every year. Bad statistics make for bad policy. Ignoring the reality that child marriage is child labour leads to a misallocation of critical resources and programs.
The international community has long agreed that a child under the age of majority is incapable of entering into a legal contract of marriage and too young to take on its responsibilities.
No one can deny that the reality of day-to-day life for girls living within child "marriages" is one of servitude. It places them at risk of the early pregnancies that so often result in the deaths of infants or young mothers or both. Besides managing the household, they are forced into a sexual relationship before the legal age of consent. At AIDS-Free World, we know that many girls forced into marriage prematurely are at an especially high risk of contracting HIV from older, more sexually experienced husbands.
Unlike most other child labourers, young girls conscripted into "marriages" are locked into their status permanently. Although young boys suffer terribly doing onerous work such as hauling bricks or weaving rugs, they won't necessarily be bound to that labour for life. For girls, the consequences and conditions are irreversible.
The ILO defines child labour as work that is mentally, physically, socially, or morally dangerous or harmful to children; work that exposes children to physical or sexual abuse; work that forces children to work long hours, unreasonably confines them to the premises, and could result in a child's death, injury, illness, or disability.
According to the ILO's own definition, child marriage is child labour. Girls count. Their labour must be counted.
