What Are Child Labor Statistics?

When it comes to child labor, statistics run the risk of reducing the problem to a litany of numbers, but it’s important to remember that these numbers represent real children with their own stories. Now, let’s consider some of those statistics.

There are about 152 million children considered to be victims of child labor around the world. Almost half of them, 73 million, are employed in hazardous jobs, and up to a fourth of all hazardous labor is done by children under 12 years of age. The industrial sector, including mining, makes up about 12 percent of all child labor.[1]

According to one report, an estimated 40 percent of artisanal miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are children. Of the more than 50 child miners surveyed and interviewed, 19 percent said they had seen another child die on the mining site, 87 percent said they experience body pain, many had been injured, 67 percent had frequent coughs and several girls reported genital infections from working in waist-deep acidic water. An eight-year-old working in a mine alongside his mother said, “Since working here, I have problems with my skin, body pains, and pain in my eyes.” These children are at risk of falling down mine shafts or being trapped in tunnels.[2] This is just one work site in one country in a world full of child labor. Annually, there are 2.78 million deaths around the globe related to child labor, and 374 million injuries and illnesses caused by child labor.[3]