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NEW YORK: Nearly 138 million children were still working in the world’s fields and factories in 2024, the UN said on Wednesday, warning that given the slow pace of progress, eliminating child labor could be delayed by “hundreds of years.”
Ten years ago, upon adopting the so-called Sustainable Development Goals, the world’s countries set themselves the ambitious target of putting an end to child labor by 2025.
“That timeline has now come to an end. But child labor has not,” UNICEF and the International Labor Organization said in a joint report.
Last year, according to data published every four years, 137.6 million children aged 5-17 were working, or around 7.8 percent of all children in that age group.
The figure is equivalent to twice the total population of France.

This nevertheless represents a drop since 2000, when 246 million children were forced to work, often to help their impoverished families.
After a worrying rise between 2016 and 2020, the trend has now reversed, with 20 million fewer children working in 2024 than four years prior.
“Significant progress” has been recorded in reducing the number of children forced into labor, UNICEF chief Catherine Russell said.
“Yet far too many children continue to toil in mines, factories, or fields, often doing hazardous work to survive.”
According to the report, nearly 40 percent of the 138 million child laborers were employed in 2024 doing particularly hazardous work “likely to jeopardize their health, safety, or development.”
Despite some rays of hope, “we must not be blindsided by the fact that we still have a long way to go before we achieve our goal of eliminating child labor,” ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo said.
At the current rate of reduction, “it will take hundreds of years,” said UNICEF expert Claudia Cappa.
Even if countries quadruple the pace of progress recorded since 2000, “we will already be in 2060,” she added.
Progress for the youngest children is particularly slow, the report found. Last year, nearly 80 million children aged five to 11 were working — about 8.2 percent of all children in that age group.
And yet the societal elements that reduce child labor are well-known, according to Cappa.
One of the main factors, free compulsory education, not only helps minors escape child labor, but also protects children from vulnerable or indecent conditions of employment when they grow up, she said.
Another, she added, is “universalizing social protection” as a way to offset or ease burdens on families and vulnerable communities.
But global funding cuts “threaten to roll back hard-earned gains,” UNICEF’s Russell said.
According to the report, agriculture is the sector making the most use of child labor (61 percent of all cases), followed by domestic work and other services (27 percent) and industry (13 percent, including mining and manufacturing).
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the hardest hit, with around 87 million child laborers.
Asia-Pacific has seen the greatest progress, with the number of working children falling from 49 million in 2000 to 28 million in 2024.

TOKYO: Japan this week confirmed that two Chinese aircraft carriers have operated together for the first time in the Pacific, fueling Tokyo’s concern about Beijing’s rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders.
Carriers are considered critical to projecting power at a distance. China routinely sends coast guard vessels, warships and warplanes to areas around the disputed East China Sea islands, but now it is going as far as what’s called the second-island chain that includes Guam — a US territory. A single Chinese carrier has ventured into the Pacific in the past, but never east of that chain until now.
Here’s what to know about the latest moves by China, which has the world’s largest navy numerically.
What happened?
Japan’s Defense Ministry said the two carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong, were seen separately but almost simultaneously operating near southern islands in the Pacific for the first time. Both operated in waters off Iwo Jima, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) south of Tokyo, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Monday.
The Liaoning also sailed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone of Minamitorishima, the country’s easternmost island. There was no violation of Japanese territorial waters. Still, Nakatani said Japan has expressed “concern” to the Chinese embassy.
Both carriers had warplanes take off and land. Late Wednesday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said a Chinese J-15 fighter jet that took off from the Shandong on Saturday chased a Japanese P-3C aircraft on reconnaissance duty in the area and came within an “abnormally close distance” of 45 meters (50 yards).
The Chinese jet on Sunday crossed 900 meters (980 yards) in front of the Japanese P-3C, the ministry said, adding it has strongly requested China to take measures to prevent such an “abnormal approach” that could cause accidental collisions.
Why is Japan worried?
China’s military buildup and expanding area of activity have raised tensions in the region.
The Chinese carriers sailed past the first-island chain, the Pacific archipelago off the Asian mainland that includes Japan, Taiwan and part of the Philippines. The Liaoning reached farther to the second-island chain, a strategic line extending to Guam, showing China also can challenge Japan’s ally, the United States.
“China apparently aims to elevate its capability of the two aircraft carriers, and to advance its operational capability of the distant sea and airspace,” Nakatani said.
The defense minister vowed to further strengthen Japan’s air defense on remote islands.
Japan has been accelerating its military buildup especially since 2022, including counter-strike capability, with long-range cruise missiles as deterrence to China.
What does China want?
China’s navy on Tuesday confirmed the deployments, calling it part of routine training in the western Pacific “to test their capabilities in far seas protection and joint operations.” It said the deployment was in compliance with international laws and not targeted at any country.
China is pursuing a vast military modernization program including ambitions of a true “blue-water” naval force capable of operating at long ranges for extended periods.
Beijing has the world’s largest navy numerically but lags far behind the United States in its number of aircraft carriers. China has three, the US 11.
Washington’s numerical advantage allows it to keep a carrier, currently the USS George Washington, permanently forward-deployed to Japan.
The Pentagon has expressed concern over Beijing’s focus on building new carriers. Its latest report to Congress on Chinese defense developments noted that it “extends air defense coverage of deployed task groups beyond the range of land-based defenses, enabling operations farther from China’s shore.”
What are the carriers’ abilities?
The two Chinese carriers currently in the western Pacific employ the older “ski-jump” launch method for aircraft, with a ramp at the end of a short runway to assist planes taking off. China’s first carrier, the Liaoning, was a repurposed Soviet ship. The second, the Shandong, was built in China along the Soviet design.
Its third carrier, the Fujian, launched in 2022 and is undergoing final sea trials. It is expected to be operational later this year. It is locally designed and built and employs a more modern, electromagnetic-type launch system like those developed and used by the US
All three ships are conventionally powered, while all the US carriers are nuclear powered, giving them the ability to operate at much greater range and more power to run advanced systems.
Satellite imagery provided to The Associated Press last year indicated China is working on a nuclear propulsion system for its carriers.
Any other recent concerns?
In August, a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft violated Japan’s airspace off the southern prefecture of Nagasaki, and a Chinese survey ship violated Japanese territorial waters off another southern prefecture, Kagoshima. In September, the Liaoning and two destroyers sailed between Japan’s westernmost island of Yonaguni — just east of Taiwan — and nearby Iriomote, entering an area just outside Japan’s territorial waters where the country has some control over maritime traffic.
China routinely sends coast guard vessels and aircraft into waters and airspace surrounding the Japanese-controlled, disputed East China Sea islands to harass Japanese vessels in the area, forcing Japan to scramble jets.
Tokyo also worries about China’s increased joint military activities with Russia, including joint operations of warplanes or warships around northern and southwestern Japan in recent years.