Lima - The launch of the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour in Latin America and the Caribbean, which allowed the ILO to convene today Presidents, governments, employers, workers, civil society and personalities of the region, evidenced that there is consensus around to the need to redouble efforts to prevent the COVID-19 crisis from translating into a setback in the progress made.

"This International Year is not about talking, it is about doing," said the ILO Director General, Guy Ryder, in his message to this regional meeting. "We ask everyone to commit so that we have a greater chance of achieving our ambitious goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): eliminating child labour by 2025."

The launch this Wednesday included messages from Presidents Iván Duque of Colombia, Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala and Francisco Sagasti of Peru, as well as the Vice President of Costa Rica, Marvin Rodríguez and the Minister of Labour and Social Security of Jamaica, Karl Samuda.

The high-level event also included interventions by Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Prize; Sofía Mauricio, former Peruvian child domestic worker and activist; Alberto Echavarría, representative of the International Organization of Employers (IOE); Cícero Pereira da Silva, from the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (CSA); Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC and Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, Deputy Regional Director of UNICEF for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The ILO has reported that in the last 25 years Latin America and the Caribbean made important progress, as 9.5 million children and adolescents stopped working, especially in dangerous activities. However, before the pandemic there were still 10.5 million in child labour.

The situation may worsen due to the crisis generated by COVID-19. Guy Ryder highlighted that "the increase in poverty and the fall in family income, the closure of schools, and the increase in vulnerabilities, are factors that can contribute to increasing child labour."

According to ILO and ECLAC estimates released in June 2020, up to 300,000 children could return to child labour due to the impact of the crisis.

"In view of the worsening of the health emergency, the prolongation of special confinement and distancing measures, and the persistence of the crisis in recent months, this situation is worsening," said the ILO Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Vinícius Pinheiro, at the start of the act.

At this moment we must "step on the accelerator" in the fight against child labour, to continue advancing and face a crisis that "could set us back in a year the equivalent of a decade of progress," added Pinheiro.

The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, stressed that the commitment is to prevent and continue to reduce child labour in society, in a video message with the first lady Juliana Ruiz. He highlighted the need to redouble efforts and warned that "this is vital now that we face the challenges of COVID-19."

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei highlighted the political commitment "at the highest level" to the prevention and eradication of child labour in all its forms at the launch of the International Year. "We join this global initiative to strengthen efforts to combat this scourge."

Francisco Sagasti, President of Peru, linked the persistence of child labour, a problem and a tragedy that afflicts the entire world, to “endemic inequality in our region”, and reiterated his country's commitment to the application of strategies to confront this trouble.

The three leaders highlighted the Regional Initiative for Latin America and the Caribbean Free of Child Labour, a tripartite platform that since its creation in 2014 has been determined to seek new responses to the emerging faces of child labour, in which 30 countries in the region participate, 7 employers 'organizations and 7 workers' organizations.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi, an international fighter against child labour who connected to the regional launch, recalled that “we have knowledge about the problem, we know what the solutions are, we have technology” to face the problem, and considered that the International Year must be translated into concrete progress.

The idea of ​​commemorating the International Year arose at the Fourth World Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour that was held in Buenos Aires in 2017. Two years later, and thanks to the active work of the Argentine Foreign Ministry, during the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations, in July 2019, 78 countries were able to support the Resolution to declare 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.

The ILO highlighted in the commemoration at the regional level that it will be necessary to bet on increasingly effective joint actions, based on social dialogue and bringing together all public and private actors that have part of the response to the persistence of child labour.

During the launch, the intervention of the Peruvian activist and former child worker Sofía Mauricio was particularly emotional. “At the age of 12 I became a babysitter… My story is not just mine. In the movements to combat child domestic labour, I saw that it is repeated in millions of girls and boys ”.

"I call on governments to establish policies for the eradication and prevention of child labour, which guarantee the protection of vulnerable people and ensure quality education," he added.

Pinheiro highlighted to the large audience gathered for this launch on virtual platforms that “we are facing a multi-causal problem that requires responses of an economic, social, political and also cultural nature, to transform patterns that perpetuate visions and perceptions of childhood and adolescence that they limit their potential and their ability to project themselves ”.

“We know the problem, we know what works to solve it. It is time to act decisively, with sufficient policies and budgets to preserve what we have achieved and instead of going backwards, move forward in the goal of eliminating child labour."

"Faced with this problem, indifference is a form of complicity," said Pinheiro at the conclusion of the launch of the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Note: If you want to listen to all the interventions of this launch event, you can consult the video recording available here .