When I was approached by the ILO to take part in the Music Against Child Labour Initiative, I was super excited because this is something I genuinely believe in, child labour needs to be eradicated.

I got into music a few years back. I wanted to see if I could make a difference on the Sri Lankan music scene. I collaborate with the composer Charitha Attalage and a few other artists. It’s a different kind of experimental music that we have been doing, a fusion between modern electronic and classical Sri Lankan. We have a loyal fan base in Sri Lanka and also a few abroad. So it keeps growing.

Sri Lankan singer donates song to help eliminate child labour

I think child labour needs to be eradicated from the world so that children are able to spend their childhood the way it should be spent. 

I have always been very passionate about the importance of education for a child.

At the moment, Sri Lanka is in a much better place compared to the region. However we still have about 40 000 children currently in child labour. They are deprived of their education and their basic rights as a child.  

Community work with children is something I have done for the past ten years. 

I work with children with disabilities and children who are underprivileged, through music, dancing and community work. 

Collaborating with the ILO was an amazing opportunity for me to give back to the community in the way that I know, through music.

We performed the song “Let them fly” on national television on 12 June 2019, which is World Day Against Child Labour.  

Our song addresses adults and pleads them not to clip the wings of a child before they even learn to fly. It summarizes the whole idea of what we are trying to say about education, basic human rights, and children having a childhood rather than working.

පුංචි අත්තටු | Let Them Fly | சிறகை விரித்து

The lyrics play a huge role. The reason to do it in all three languages, Sinhalese, Tamil and English, was to address a larger audience rather than focus on only one community. We wanted everybody to understand it, relate to the cause, and also reach out to an international audience.

Having the children’s choir as part of the song also adds a lot and I think touches the heart of the audience as well.

Music can talk to a wider audience and I think it will reach a lot of hearts. 

Children are the future of this country. We have a few more steps to go.  I think by way of music we’ll be able to convince a lot of people, convey the message and create more awareness to end child labour.

“Let them fly” has been watched over 150,000 times on social media.

40,000 children remain in child labour in Sri Lanka, mainly in the service sector.

They are predominantly in hazardous and at times hidden forms of child labour, posing a challenge to its complete   eradication.

The Government has worked with local and international partners to tackle the issue systematically.

In 2018, Sri Lanka became a “Pathfinder Country” under the Alliance 8.7 partnership that brings together countries and organizations to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating all forms of child labour by 2025.

Sri Lankan music star Ridma Weerawardena talks about his hit song "Let them fly" and why he decided to join the fight against child labour.

A song to let children fly

My name is Min Min. I left school when I was in the third grade. I dreamt about being a teacher.  I'm now about 13 years old.

I live with my uncle and aunt.  I came here last summer. In the morning when I wake up, I go out to look for jade stones. In the evening I go out again around 10pm. Looking for the stones is very tiring. The ones I find are small.

Myammar: Children at risk in jade stone scavenging

The most valuable jade stone I’ve ever found was worth about Kyat 100,000 (about USD100).

We risk our lives for those stones. A man died last night. I saw it with my own eyes.

It depends on the size of the stones we find, but if it’s very big the mining company takes half of what we earn from us. We risk our lives for those stones. A man died last night. I saw it with my own eyes.

The Hpakant area of Myanmar is known as the “land of jade”. 

A piece of polished jade stone in the palm of a hand.

I have seen others take drugs and become addicts. I don’t want to do drugs. I like football and chinlone (the national sport of Myanmar). Sometimes I play them in the afternoon.

Min Min puts his shoes on in preparation to go jade scavenging.

My parents live elsewhere. My dad also scavenges for jade stones. My mum stays home to cook and clean. I have six siblings. My young brother is at school. I don’t want him to quit. I want him to become an educated person.   

I am saving my money. When I grow up I want to own a house and take care of my parents.

2021: International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour

Jade picking is hazardous work. Nearly 200 people died in a mudslide at a jade mining site in Hpakant on 2 July 2020.  

1.13 million 5- to 17-year olds are trapped in child labour in Myanmar. This means one in every 11 children is deprived of their childhood, health and education. 

As of 2020 both ILO core conventions on child labour, Conventions 182 and 138, have been ratified by Myanmar. 

Child labour has declined by 55 per cent over the last three years in three target pilot communities with support from the ILO Liaison Office in Myanmar and its partners, including the United States Department of Labor (USDOL).

COVID-19 has exacerbated pressure on vulnerable families. The ILO in Myanmar is working closely with communities in targeted areas to help families deal with income loss due to the pandemic and ensure children are not sent to work. 

In 2021, countries around the world will mark the UN’s International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, and the Government of Myanmar will work closely with the ILO and employer and worker organizations to strengthen its National Action Plan to eliminate child labour.

There is a real opportunity to protect children like Min Min if everyone plays their part. 

Min Min is 13 and scavenges for scraps of jade stone in northern Myanmar, “the land of jade”.  It’s a hazardous undertaking.  In 2020 nearly 200 people died from a mudslide at a nearby mining site.

Child labour in Myanmar’s jade mines is a deadly gamble

Learning how to cook is so much more than learning a trade. Food arouses powerful memories and feelings, because it‘s something you can bring to your family and friends, because it involves how you relate to your environment. 

Learning how to cook is about changing your life.  

This is just what I hope to achieve with “Kitchen & Voice”. It’s a joint initiative of the Brazilian Public Ministry of Labour and the International Labour Organization, that helps give the most marginalized people – the homeless, abused women, Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people – the chance to have a real job.  

I’ve been doing this since December 2017. The initial idea was to give cooking classes in a prison in Salvador de Bahia.  But I thought a training programme would be a gateway to the restaurant industry. In Brazil, people love eating out – it accounts for 3 per cent of GDP. 

And that’s how we started, in Sao Paulo, with a group of 30 transgender participants. We’ve grown since then and now we give an average of four classes a year in different states with 50 to 60 people per class. This year we had to do the training online, due to the pandemic. But we did it anyway. 

The course involves classes in nine disciplines and provides the basic skills for work in a restaurant kitchen, including salad dressing techniques, preparation of fish, meat and vegetables, waste handling and food storage. 

I make a point of using local ingredients like manioc, rice and bananas, that are easy to obtain and also have links to the roots of indigenous cuisine. They are part of a heritage that is being lost. And we don’t cook meat.

Since food can be extraordinarily evocative, during their training some of our students rediscovered flavours from dishes their mothers or grandmothers used to make. Some brought the food they cooked to their families, with whom they had sometimes not spoken for years. 

Perhaps my own background has helped me to understand the people who join the classes. I was born in Argentina into a family of Italian immigrants.  My mother was a lawyer. She gave me a great sense of justice. A sense of urgency too, that something had to be done to help others. I have been a cook for 30 years and although I have been successful, I never forget that those who work in the kitchen usually come from very humble origins.

I do believe diversity is the best ingredient, in cooking and in life. Working with people from very different backgrounds enriches you as a person.

In the last four years, we have managed to bring many participants into jobs offered by a network of partner companies. Two of them work in my restaurants. 

I think it shows a change towards more diversity in companies’ corporate culture, because I do believe diversity is the best ingredient, in cooking and in life. Working with people from very different backgrounds enriches you as a person. 

It hasn’t been easy. But thanks to the support of the ILO, the funding from the Ministry of Labour and also the fact that I am a well-known chef, we’ve managed to overcome many prejudices.

The next thing I want to do is help more companies participate in the project. Perhaps by giving them incentives, such as tax breaks or some kind of a rating system that would show they are involved in a project favouring the inclusion of vulnerable people. 

I truly hope we will encourage other businesses to join “Kitchen & Voice” and help to promote the employability of a very talented, but still largely excluded, portion of the population. 

ILO helps open doors to labour market for LGBTI people in Brazil

Brazilian Public Ministry of Labour and ILO establish strategic alliance 

The Public Ministry of Labour (MPT) in Brazil

ILOSTAT blog: A call for LGBT labour statistics

ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work 

Around 80 countries have laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics. 

However, many LGBTI people continue to face high levels of discrimination, violence, harassment, persecution and stigma, including in the workplace.

The ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work includes a commitment to fight all forms of discrimination.

To effectively promote decent work for the LGBTI community, more statistical data is needed to find out the extent of the discrimination they face and the different forms it takes. 

The Argentinian celebrity chef, Paola Carosella, explains why she joined the ILO’s “Kitchen and Voice” project, which helps marginalized and vulnerable people in Brazil find work in the hospitality sector.

Diversity is the best ingredient

My name is Viorica Anghel from Andrușul de Jos village. I use honey in many natural health remedies, and was always buying it, so I thought I might as well produce it myself!

With the help of the International Labour Organization I benefited from a beekeeping project where I received instruction and lessons from an older more experienced mentor. 

Bees - a remedy for business success

The training was so interesting and useful, that in those several weeks of the course I didn't miss a lesson. I had the feeling that I had read a library full of books on beekeeping.

My instructor Sergiu Paslaru is very helpful - no matter the time of day, he is always willing to answer any questions. 

I decided to participate in the project because of my disability, but also because of my child, who has health problems. 

In the beginning we were upset when the bees stung us.  But gradually we learned more about them and now we have become attached to them and them to us. 

I use honey and bee-derived products to make many natural remedies for colds, bone pain and so on.

I treat my son, Gabriel, with honey vinegar when he gets sick. 

These projects are most welcome. It provides a means to support yourself - and I don’t mean just for me, now, but for any young person. This would be an opportunity for them not to have to go abroad for work, but to develop a small business in their own country.

With the grant I received, I was able to set up a small family business. 

The most valuable thing that I acquired participating in the Local Employment Partnership project, besides knowledge and financial aid, was the confidence that all those involved in this project offered to me and now I am determined to transmit this feeling to other people.

At the moment, I feel like I have wings! I gained a lot of self-esteem and dignity.

Local Employment Partnership – Cahul District

Regular Budget Supplementary Account (RBSA)

Viorica hopes to produce half a tonne of honey in 2021 with an estimated income of USD 2,000.  She aims to double that again in 2022.

She is one of 882 beneficiaries of the first Local Employment Partnership (LEP) in the Cahul district in southern Moldova, a pilot project funded by the ILO's Regular Budget Supplementary Account (RBSA).

Launched in April 2019, Cahul LEP has brought together over 20 public and private partners at national and local level, who, with the assistance of the ILO, are improving the local labour market. 

The aim is to create and formalize jobs, and to identify business development opportunities for youth and   persons with disabilities in the Cahul district.

Viorica Anghel transformed her life when she signed up for a beekeeper’s course run by the ILO in Moldova.  She now runs her own business and uses the honey for medicinal purposes to treat her son.

I came to Jordan with my family, with my brother and sister. We came here from Syria so we can work and to escape the problems.  I got engaged to my husband here and we got married in Mafraq.

We would work in one place for a month. Then we would have to move to a different farm. We were tired because of all the displacement. It was very difficult. 

When we came to this farm, they gave us a caravan. We found that living in a caravan is better than living in a tent and it is cleaner for the children and for us. We are now settled at this farm. We stopped moving. 

Impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable workers in Jordan

I have four children. My eldest son is six years old. Then there’s my daughter who is five, my other son who is two and my youngest daughter who is seven months old.

When I wake up in the morning, I make the children their breakfast. Then my husband has his breakfast and goes to work. When I finish the housework, I leave the children with a relative and go to work on the farm with the other   workers. I work from 7am until around 2pm and then I go back home to my children, because I have a baby girl and this is why I can’t work a full day at the farm. In the afternoon, I milk the sheep and I finish off the housework. 

On the farm we pick peaches and tomatoes.

When we first heard about the coronavirus, we were scared. I started watching the news, going online on my phone, and going on YouTube to learn how to protect myself. We bought all the essentials so we didn’t have to leave the house and mix with others.

At the beginning of the outbreak, we were told that we could not congregate at work. I stopped working for two months. 

As a mother,   I had to have an income to buy my baby daughter her milk.  I would do any job just so I could secure the   cost of the milk.

We went through a difficult time. We had to borrow money from people. We had expenses to pay for.  As a mother, I had to secure an income to buy my baby daughter her milk and to meet my children’s needs.

I started doing all sorts of work.  I helped my husband and the farm owner to take care of the livestock, and in return I was given a small amount of milk, which I used to make yoghurt and cheese.  I sold my products in the town of Sabha and then would go to the pharmacy to buy milk for my daughter.

I also faced a lot of pressure at home.  I had to cook, clean and disinfect the house twice a day. In the first couple of months of the virus, we couldn’t obtain enough bread, so I was baking bread for the children every two to three days.

Fatima feeds her baby daughter with a bottle of milk.

When the caravan school (informal education centre) opened at the farm our six-year-old son started going there and he was there for four months. Then they stopped going because of the crisis and they started giving them schoolwork remotely. He knows the letters and numbers and he knows how to write his name. 

My son would follow the lessons set by his teachers on   WhatsApp and when he finished his lessons, I would teach him some more.

I have a neighbour here who is on her own and she is old. I felt sorry for her. I would bake a lot of bread so that I could give her some.  We’d give her anything that we had enough of. 

There is a lot of collaboration between us and our neighbours. All the people here at the camp help each other and give each other things. 

After the lockdown ended we were glad to go back to work, so that we can secure an income to meet our needs and our children’s needs. 

Partnership for improving prospects for forcibly displaced persons and host communities (PROSPECTS)

According to an ILO study, almost half of the surveyed workers who were in employment before the COVID-19 outbreak were out of work during the early weeks of the crisis. The majority did not have any forms of savings.

The farm where Fatima lives is one of 24 farms being targeted by the ILO since 2018 to enhance decent working conditions in the agriculture sector.  Activities include providing families living on site with prefabricated houses, setting up workers’ committees, helping improve occupational safety and health, skills training, and supporting access to informal education for children on farms.  

These initiatives are part of the “Partnership for improving prospects for forcibly displaced persons and host communities” (PROSPECTS) - a strategic partnership between the Netherlands, ILO, UNHCR, UNICEF, World Bank and IFC that supports host communities and displaced populations in eight countries across East and North Africa and the Arab States.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers' hours were reduced at the farm in Jordan where Syrian refugee Fatima Hussein Al Ahmad lives and works.   Resourceful and determined, she found alternative ways to earn money to buy milk for her baby daughter.

A refugee mother determined to provide despite COVID-19

History, it is said, does not repeat itself but it often rhymes.

I interpret this to mean that while we never see exactly the same events more than once, there are patterns which recur, and from which we can learn.  My day job is concerned with contemporary labour standards. My hobby is the study of ancient history, and the more I look at the great empires of the past, the more I see relevance to the issues I deal with at work. 

The lessons of antiquity for combating contemporary forced labour

The lessons of antiquity for combatting contemporary forced labour

For example, slavery or forced labour was not a generalized practice in antiquity. The so-called "strike papyrus" (now in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy), created in 1166 BC, contains evidence that the builders, artisans and scribes who lived in the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medina and worked on the tombs during the reign of Ramses III (thought to be from 1186 to 1155 BC), were free people. The scroll shows that these workers, along with their bosses, stopped work in an organized and collective way to demand the payment of wage arrears and to protest at corrupt State administrators.

We could also attribute to Egyptian culture the values of inclusion and tolerance for workers with disabilities. For example, blind people were placed in charge of music and people with dwarfism worked metals, specifically gold.

However, we cannot deny that ancient civilizations also defined differences between (free) servants and slaves. A clear example of this can be seen in the Hammurabi codex,  one of the world’s first legal texts which was created in Babylon in 1692 BC. The sale of human beings is recorded, alongside that of goods and services (which also relied on the slave labour that underpinned the economies of the kingdoms between which they were traded).

In the following centuries other societies such as the Assyrians and Spartans followed the same path, with economies that depended on slavery. The model reached its peak with the Romans, when there were as many as ten slaves per free person.

Despite these well-documented cases of slave-based systems, there were periods where free labour predominated – for example, during the period in the XIIth century BC when the "strike papyrus" was written. Influential voices emerged in subsequent centuries, raising questions about the role of slavery as a business and its place in the development of a nation.

Two of the great figureheads of the Hellenic world, Hesiod and Solon, promoted societies where markets were confined only to goods and services; no one should have absolute authority over any other person, any contract needed to be temporary and subject to agreement between citizens. 

Hesiod (750 - 600 BC), in his poem “Works and Days”, said that labour is the only way in which a man who despises violence can be heroic, independent and achieve unconditional respect among his peers.

Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker and poet who is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy.

Solon (638 - 558 BC), as portrayed in the literary work of Diogenes Laercio, emphasized that wherever the labour of a free man is not dignified, this implies the impoverishment of society and an inability to maintain an adequate style of life.

This opposition to slavery was also promoted by no less than Cyrus the Great, the man at the head of the largest empire of his time (559 - 530 BC). Thanks to the cylinder of Cyrus, a text printed on a clay cylinder that is regarded by many as the oldest declaration of human rights, researchers have concluded  that the Cyrus forbade the purchase and sale of humans within his Persian Empire. 

Pericles was the most famous and influential Athenian statesman of ancient Greece.

A century later the Greek statesman Pericles, (495 – 429 BC), to whom people attribute the Greek golden age, realized that slavery endangers and promotes unfair competition against free people. Consequently he determined that the Acropolis in Athens, one of the greatest monuments of antiquity, would be built only by free men. For Pericles, the combination of initiative, trade and democracy made people not only free but dignified and prosperous. 

A study of ancient history shows that many great thinkers and leaders were against slavery and forced labour, and concluded that if work was not dignified then States would, sooner or later fall into economic poverty. In other words, they established a direct relationship between a worker’s dignity and the prosperity of the political and social systems to which they belonged.

Signing of the ILO Centenary Declaration on the Future of Work, at the International Labour Conference in June 2019

Nowadays, it is widely held that labour must be centred around people – women and men – and their dignity and personal growth, and the ILO’s Centenary Declaration on the Future of Work encapsulates this view.

But, looking back at some of history’s great milestones and the writings of some of the great thinkers of antiquity, one can see that this is part of a continuum of thought, running through human history: if someone does not work with joy, productivity will suffer, and to work with joy and dignity it is essential to be able to enjoy the fruits of such work.

ILO Interview with Rodrigo Mogrovejo END Quote.mp3

What impressed me was that they already understood ideas that seem so necessary to us now, and so important, but which to them were very clear: that people needed to work in dignity, and that they needed to enjoy their work. That really touched me.

ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work

At any given time in 2016, an estimated 24.9 million people were trapped in forced labour.

Of these, 16 million people are exploited in the private sector such as domestic work, construction or agriculture; 4.8 million persons in forced sexual exploitation, and 4 million persons in forced labour imposed by state authorities.

Forced labour generates annual profits of US$ 150 billion.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by forced labour, accounting for 99% of victims in the commercial sex industry, and 58% in other sectors.

Rodrigo Mogrovejo works for the ILO in Mexico where he deals with contemporary labour standards. His hobby is the study of ancient history, where he sees great relevance to the issues he deals with daily at work.

The Turin Strike Papyrus, the record of the first known strike, which took place in the Nile Valley during the 29th year of the reign of Ramses III, 12th Century BCE (c.1198-1166 BCE).

Labour, freedom and happiness: The great driving forces of antiquity

I was put in prison for stealing vanilla. Now I’m working, I make cinder blocks and I have no reason to go back to jail.

I want to work because there’s no future for me in prison. I never want to steal from other people again.

Occupational training: a pathway out of delinquency in Madagascar

I’d like to help my friends so that they don’t do what I did. I feel I have a duty to advise them. 

What we did was, we stole vanilla. There were two of us. We were caught and thrown in jail.

I was in the jail in Antalaha, and there I got training.  I did it, I learned to be a bricklayer and I earned a diploma.

Prisoners at the jail in Antalaha learn to make cinder blocks.

In prison we learned to make cinder blocks, how to lay them to make a wall, how to lay foundations, make casings and posts. We built small houses, a small kitchen. We learned a lot of stuff in prison.

What I really want to do is work to earn money and get on with my life.

After I finished the training I came back to my village. I tried to apply what I learned and to make cinder blocks. 

Interview Sergio audio.mp3

But because of the coronavirus pandemic, sales have really dropped. Business is bad. The builders aren’t buying anymore. I’ve struggled to survive.

Here I am with my uncle and my grandfather.

My uncle is a bricklayer, he’s got experience in this field and does what he can to help me get materials.

As soon as the pandemic’s over I’ll go back to making cinder blocks.

ILO Country Office for Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles (in French)

Vocational training for former child labourers in the vanilla sector in Antalaha District, Sava Region, is an initiative of the ILO SAVABE project, funded by the US Department of Labor, which supports sustainable and child labour-free practices in vanilla-growing communities in Sava.   

USD 40,600 has been allocated to provide six months of training for 80 children aged 14 to 17 who have been jailed for stealing vanilla.

The training centre in Antalaha is located in the local jail and was set up in collaboration with the Regional Directorate for National Education, Technical Instruction and Vocational Training and the Regional Directorate of the Antalaha Penitentiary Administration.

In Madagascar, Sergio was arrested and jailed when he was 16 for stealing vanilla. Thanks to vocational training he’s learned to be a bricklayer and no longer engages in petty crime.

From prison to a better life

The world is now in the grip of an unprecedented crisis, with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the very adverse economic impact of containment measures. The pandemic has highlighted something that had been almost forgotten by policy makers across the world in the past few decades: the importance of expenditure in public health and social protection systems.

These protect not just those who are traditionally seen as beneficiaries, but everyone in society. Pandemics expose the basic truth that as long as anyone anywhere has a contagious disease, everyone everywhere is at risk. Universal health coverage is not about compassion but the survival of all. Policies of reducing government expenditure on health services have been shown to be fundamentally flawed, generating major vulnerabilities in societies and economies.

COVID-19 has not been a great leveller. Rather, it has already sharply increased global inequality, both between and within countries. Containment measures like lockdowns and mobility restrictions also have unequal effects. Informal workers tend to be the worst affected because of a lack of legal and social protection. Since the enforced closures also affect supply, there are concerns about rising food prices and shocks to food security, even among those not considered “poor”.

A mother wears a mask to protect herself and her child from COVID-19.

The need for adequate social protection on various fronts has never been more evident and urgent. But these large demands on public fiscal resources are coming just as most developing countries are facing a terrible combination of rapid declines in export and tourism revenues, and capital outflows. While most developed countries are instituting large fiscal stimulus packages, this is much more difficult for developing countries.

For them, policy space is reduced by external constraints on the balance of payments and by fears of capital flight. Estimates of the financing needs of developing countries have been in the range of US$2.5 trillion (Source: UNCTAD 2020, IMF 2020) while the immediately-required increase in health spending has been projected at anywhere between US$160 billion (Source: Oxfam) and US$500 billion (Source: UNCTAD). How is this to be achieved?

Most fiscal packages in advanced countries require a substantial amount of monetised deficit (borrowing by the state from the central bank). This is also possible in developing countries. Internally, there are possibilities to raise tax revenues through wealth taxes. In most countries even a low tax rate of 3 per cent applied to just the top 0.1 per cent of the population could yield significant revenues. Implementing the proposal for unitary taxation of multinational companies would also generate substantial revenues.

Developing countries have much less flexibility with regard to foreign exchange. The international community has to step in, through immediate changes that enable a swift increase in resources. Such new finance must be compensatory in nature and avoid policy conditionalities (which have had, at best, mixed success in the past and cannot be insisted upon at a time of global recession and health hazards).

Within the existing financial architecture, a measure that is immediately possible is a large new issue of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the IMF. These are reserve assets created by the IMF (as a weighted basket of five major currencies) to supplement the official foreign exchange reserves of countries. They create additional liquidity at no extra cost and are not loans.

A second required measure is a standstill on all debt repayments (both principal and interest) for one year, or until debt restructuring packages are worked out, as countries cope with both the spread of the disease and the lockdown effects. This is essential because as much as $1.6 trillion of developing country external debt is due to be repaid in the current year, with a further $1.1 trillion due in 2021.

All this requires greater international solidarity than is currently evident. But if there is one message from the pandemic that we cannot ignore (and which is even more significant when it comes to dealing with climate change), it is that the absence of such solidarity will affect people across all nations badly. Unprecedented existential threats require unprecedented and globally co-ordinated responses.

Social protection is affordable even in most low-income countries

Social protection responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in developing countries

Only 27 per cent of the world’s population has adequate social security coverage and more than half lack any coverage at all. 

Only 45 per cent of the global population is covered by at least one social benefit, while the remaining 55 per cent– 4 billion people – are left unprotected.

The ILO actively promotes policies and provides assistance to countries to help extend adequate levels of social protection to all members of society. 

Less than 11 per cent of GDP is spent on social protection and only 7 per cent on health protection.

How to finance social protection in developing countries in the age of COVID-19

Crises fall hardest on the most vulnerable. Young people make up one such group, particularly when it comes to the social and economic impact of the virus pandemic.

Making the transition into decent employment is a tough challenge for young people, even in the best economic times. Figures from 2019 – before the virus outbreak – demonstrate this, with one-in-five of those aged under 25 (equivalent to 267 million young people worldwide) classified as NEET, or not in employment, education or training.

There are five reasons why young women and men will be particularly affected by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic:

Young workers are affected more than their older, more experienced colleagues by recessions. Experience shows that younger workers are often the first to have their hours cut or be laid off. A lack of networks and experience can make it more difficult for them to find other, decent, jobs and they can be pushed into work with less social and legal protection. Young entrepreneurs and youth cooperatives face similar problems, because a tight economic situation can make it harder to find resources and financing, and they lack the know-how to cope with difficult business conditions.

Crises fall hardest on the most vulnerable. When it comes to the social and economic impacts of the pandemic, young people are more likely to feel the pinch harder.

Youth hit hard by COVID-19’s economic fallout

Three in four young people work in the informal economy (particularly in low- and middle-income countries), for example in agriculture or in small cafes and restaurants. With little or no savings, they can’t afford to take time off to self-isolate.

Many young workers are in “non-standard forms of employment”, such as part-time, temporary or ‘gig’ work. Such jobs are often low paid, with irregular hours, poor job security, and little or no social protection (paid leave, pensions, sick leave, etc). Often, such work does not qualify for unemployment benefits, and in many countries the labour market institutions that might help, such as job-centres, are ineffective.

Young people commonly work in sectors and industries that are particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, roughly one-in-three young workers in European Union member states were in the wholesale, retail, accommodation and food sectors (as shop assistants, chefs, waiters, etc), which are predicted to be among the businesses worst affected by COVID-19. Young women in particular are likely to be affected because they make up more than half of the under-25’s employed in these sectors – for example women account for 57 per cent of young people in the food services and accommodation sector in Switzerland and 65 per cent of those in the United Kingdom.

Young people are more at risk than any other age group from automation. A recent ILO study shows that the kind of jobs they hold are more likely to be automatable, in whole or part.

So, while the COVID-19 emergency is going to affect almost everyone in the world, regardless of age, income or country, young people are likely to feel the pinch harder. Therefore, when world leaders draw up support and stimulus packages, they need to include special measures to help young people, and ensure they are included in support schemes – whether they are employees or entrepreneurs.

It isn’t just individuals who are damaged by increases in youth unemployment, it exerts a great and long-term cost on our societies too. Entering the labour market in a recession can lead to significant and persistent earnings losses for young people that can last their entire career. Ignoring the particular problems of young workers risks wasting talent, education and training, meaning that the legacy of the COVID-19 outbreak could last for decades.

Youth exclusion from jobs and training on the rise

Global Employment Trends for Youth 2020: Technology and the future of jobs

The Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth

Today, over 40 per cent of the world’s youth are either unemployed or have a job but live in poverty. Over 66 million young women and men worldwide are looking for a job and more than one-third of those working in developing economies lives on less than US$2 a day.

The COVID-19 emergency is affecting almost everyone in the world, regardless of age, income or country. However, young people are likely to be particularly hard hit by the economic fallout of the crisis. Find out five reasons why.

First-person perspectives on the world of work