On the 12^th of June this year’s World Day Against Child Labour emphasises the importance of free and compulsory education up to at least the minimum age for employment. A good standard of relevant education prepares children to go on and make the most of the labour market in adulthood, preventing a cycle of poverty and underage work.

Recent figures suggest that approximately 168 million children around the world are engaged in child labour. 120 million of these are aged between 5 and 14.  Along with a failure to keep children in school long enough, poverty, a lack of decent work for adults and inadequate social protections lie at the root of the problem.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of child labour with extreme poverty and armed conflicts seeing the phenomenon thrive. The issue is most acute in the developing world, but Europe is far from immune to the problem. In fact, thousands of children are forced to work in dangerous conditions across the continent.

The international community is currently considering its failure to achieve a range of education targets in the lead up to 2015. As the process of devising new strategies develops it is essential that decision-makers acknowledge the importance of aligning education and child labour policies.  For our own part, we can try to ensure that our consumer choices and the campaigns we support help to end the abuse of children as child labourers, furthering the objective of securing for them their most basic of human rights.