BUENOS AIRES | ARGENTINA
14-16 November 2017

BUENOS AIRES DECLARATION ON CHILD LABOUR, FORCED LABOUR AND
YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
16 NOVEMBER 2017

We, representatives from governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations,
together with international and regional organizations and civil society organizations,have gathered at the IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour
in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14-16 November 2017, to take stock of progress made since
the III Global Conference on Child Labour, in Brasilia, Brazil, in 2013, taking into accountthe Brasilia Declaration as well as The Hague Roadmap of 2010, to assess obstacles
and to agree on measures to accelerate the eradication of child labour and forced
labour and, in this context, promote full and productive employment and decent work
for all, especially for youth. The international normative framework for these efforts
is provided mainly by the eight fundamental Conventions of the International Labour
Organization (ILO) and the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930i
and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work; as well as otherrelevant ILO and United Nations (UN) Conventionsii;
Noting the estimates that 152 million girls and boys are still engaged in child labour,with 73 million in its worst forms; that 25 million people, including more than 4 million
children, are still subject to forced labour, noting the importance of trafficking inpersons; that 71 million youth are unemployed; that most child labour and forced labour
is found in the informal rural and urban economies, not least in areas of armed conflictand crisis and is acute in the lower segments of some global supply chains;
Recognizing that child labour, notably its worst forms, and forced labour are major
violations and abuses of human rights and dignity; and both causes and consequencesof poverty, inequality, discrimination, social exclusion and lack of access to education;and noting that child labour, forced labour, poverty and decent work deficits for adults
are all inter-connected and require an integrated and holistic approach to achieve theireradication;
Recognizing that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (hereafter “the 2030Agenda”) represents a unique opportunity to accelerate the eradication of inequality
and poverty; and noting its Target 8.7 to eradicate child labour in all its forms by 2025
and forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking by 2030;
Welcoming the establishment of Alliance 8.7 to end forced labour, modern slavery,
human trafficking and child labour, which can strengthen international cooperation,
coordination and assistance through enhanced, appropriate multi-stakeholder
partnerships to accelerate implementation of Target 8.7, as well as other relevant goals
and targets of the 2030 Agenda;
Acknowledging that the full realization of fundamental principles and rights atwork is one of the preconditions for decent work for all, in particular for women andyoung people; guaranteeing the protection of all workers; and providing an enablingchildlabour2017.org | 3

environment for sustainable enterprises, the formalization of the informal economy
and for realizing the right to education for all children;
Recognizing the importance of rural poverty reduction, the extension of social
protection and access to public, free, complete, universal, quality primary and secondary
education, affordable, quality technical vocational and tertiary education and life-longlearning, and of area-based and community interventions for eradicating child labourand forced labour;
Reaffirming the key role that employers’ and workers’ organizations and social dialogue
must play in the eradication of child labour and forced labour and in promoting decent
work for all, in particular for women and young people;
Recognizing the role that civil society and international and regional organizations
play in achieving these goals;
Recognizing that globalization, demographic, environmental and technologicalchanges have an impact on labour markets and employment, and economic andsocial development, which cause challenges for the eradication of child labour andforced labour, unemployment, informality and inequality but may also provide newopportunities to eradicate them;
Recognizing that 71 per cent of child labour is performed in the various subsectors ofagriculture, 42 per cent of this work is hazardous, and is mainly performed in informaland family enterprises that depend on their children’s labour;
Noting that 12 per cent of forced labour takes place in agriculture, 24 per cent indomestic work, 18 per cent in construction and 15 per cent in manufacturing, amongother sectors;
Noting that the unprecedented scale of migration and forced displacement has
increased the number of children and adults who are or are at risk of becoming victimsof child labour and forced labour; and that such risk can be mitigated or prevented bystrengthened governance of labour migration;
Noting that child labour and forced labour are exacerbated by crisis situations arisingfrom conflicts and disasters; and deeply concerned that conflict alone affects morethan 250 million children, including those who are forcibly recruited into armed conflict
and those subjected to sexual exploitation, with many more at greater risk of otherforms of child labour;
Recognizing that the goal of universal ratification of the ILO fundamental Conventions,
including the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930, the relevant
human rights instruments, and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children is important;
Underlining that the eradication of child labour and forced labour requires commitment
to action, and effective implementation of the relevant normative framework;

4 | childlabour2017.org

Recalling that the violation of fundamental principles and rights at work cannot be
invoked or otherwise used as a legitimate comparative advantage; and that labour
standards should not be used for protectionist trade purposes;
Acknowledging, in the fight against child labour and forced labour, the relevance of
the ILO’s Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises andSocial Policy, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the OECD
Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises;
Despite the progress made at the national, regional and international level towards
eradicating child labour and forced labour; we regret that the global goal of eliminating
the worst forms of child labour by 2016 has not been reached, that the decline in childlabour has slowed and that numbers of people in forced labour has remained high overrecent years; and we therefore recognize the urgent need to accelerate efforts at all levels;
We declare our commitment to the eradication of child labour and forced labour,and call upon governments, social partners, international and regional organizations,civil society organizations and all other relevant stakeholders to take up the following
principles and actions:

1) PRINCIPLES
Public policies and programmes addressing child labour and forced labour should:i)		respect, promote and protect human rights, in particular fundamental principles
and rights at work and the rights of the child;ii)

serve the best interests of the child;iii)	recognize the need for rights and obligations to be matched with appropriate
and effective remedies when breached;iv)	be designed and implemented through tripartite social dialogue, and as part ofcoherent and coordinated national policies for decent work;v)	pay special attention including to social protection and to integrated measures
to support families;vi)	pay due attention to persons in situations of vulnerability, who might be victims
of discrimination on any grounds and to social and economic exclusion;vii) be evidence-based;viii) be sensitive to gender, age, disability and origin, where appropriate;ix)	assure that children, who are capable of forming their own views, and adults
directly concerned, have the right to express their own views freely in all

childlabour2017.org | 5matters affecting them, with the views of the child being given due weight inaccordance with the age and maturity of the child; andx) make effective, efficient, and results-based use of resources, focusing on impact.

2) ACTIONS
We declare our commitment and urge the wider international community to commit to:
1. Policy and governance1.1.	Accelerate efforts to end child labour in all its forms by 2025, generate theconditions for full and productive employment and decent work for young
people, and to eradicate forced labour by 2030 while addressing the rootcauses of child labour and forced labour;1.2.	Seek to align, as a matter of urgency, policies, strategies and time-bound actionplans at corresponding levels, relevant to the eradication of child labour andforced labour, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
1.3	Promote integrated, coherent and effective public services and policies in thefields of labour, justice, education, agriculture, health, vocational training andsocial protection as a strategy to eradicate child labour and forced labour;
1.4	Strengthen the capacity of and involve public authorities, social partners, civilsociety, local communities and enterprises to develop and implement suchpolicies, strategies and action plans at all relevant levels;
1.5	Strengthen the organizational capacity of local communities, as appropriate, in
their efforts to prevent, detect and eliminate child labour and forced labour; toensure that relevant authorities are aware of and replicate these efforts;
1.6	Taking into consideration the objective of universal ratification of the ILO
fundamental Conventions, including the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour
Convention, 1930, promote the effective implementation of Conventions Nos.
138, 182, 29, and 105, the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention,
1930, and related Recommendations, as well as the UN Convention on theRights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, and the UN Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children;
1.7	Strengthen national legal frameworks and their enforcement, including theperiodic review and update of the national list of hazardous work prohibited
for all children, and efforts to eradicate hazardous child labour, particularly insectors and occupations where it is most prevalent;
1.8	Strengthen the capacity of labour inspection and other enforcement services,
according to national law, to better detect and address child labour and forced
labour, assist victims, promote and ensure compliance with legislation;

6 | childlabour2017.org

1.9	Take effective measures to prevent child labour and forced labour, and toprotect the victims, in particular those who are in a situation of vulnerability,
by ensuring their access to administrative and judicial mechanisms, effective
remedies, such as (re)integration into education, rehabilitation, as well as
providing for appropriate sanctions for the perpetrators;
1.10	Pay particular attention to the needs and circumstances of those in situationof vulnerability in building and maintaining national social security systems,
including social protection floors, taking into consideration the Social Security(Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102) and the Social Protection
Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), to eradicate and prevent child labourand forced labour;
1.11	Strengthen policies and programmes aimed at ensuring equal access to free,public, and compulsory education for all children; retaining children, especiallygirls and other children in vulnerable situations, in quality and inclusive education
systems; and favour evidence-based strategies to promote a smooth schoolto-work transition, transferable life-long skills training, quality apprenticeships,
employability, and full and productive employment and decent work for youth;
1.12	Promote coherent and integrated strategies to achieve the transition frominformal to formal economies, social development and innovation, with a focus
on women and young people;
1.13 Empower children and young people, particularly girls and young women andothers who are in situations of vulnerability, and protect them from becoming
victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking in persons;
1.14	Promote inclusive rural development to eradicate and prevent child labour andforced labour, through the expansion of the scope of services provided by thestate, the promotion of decent work, improved productivity, the creation ofa favourable business environment and use of technology, safer agricultural
practices, access to knowledge and education for children and young people,
financial and agricultural extension services, markets and opportunities forvalue addition and non-farm employment, among others means;
1.15	Take measures to protect all migrants and children on the move, in full respectof the fundamental principles and rights at work, and the rights of the child,including coordinated efforts at national level, and cooperation between origin,transit and destination countries;
1.16	Promote fair labour recruitment practices, the protection of workers in thehiring process and ensure that regulation of labour recruiters is in accordancewith the ILO General principles and operational guidelines for fair recruitment;
1.17	Strengthen implementation of actions to eradicate child labour and forced
labour in crisis situations arising from conflicts and disasters, with particularattention to the protection of children, and other persons in situation ofvulnerability, regardless of their legal status;

childlabour2017.org | 7

2. Knowledge, data and monitoring
2.1	Strengthen national capacities to regularly collect and disseminate disaggregateddata, such as by sex, age and sector, in particular on victims and populations insituations of vulnerability, with due regard to the protection of personal data;
2.2	Make progress on the commitment to produce, at national level, as appropriate,
standardized indicators on relevant targets of the 2030 Agenda and implement
efforts to monitor progress within the global indicator framework;
2.3	Support international cooperation for the exchange of evidence-based dataand good practices to address cross-border cases of child labour, forced labour
and trafficking in persons;2.4	Urge the International Labour Office, in close collaboration with other UN
agencies and other international and national partners, to continue producing
global estimates and stimulating sharing best practices on child labour and onforced labour;
2.5	Conduct research on child labour and forced labour and their root causes
in order to accelerate action to eradicate them. Such research should pay
particular attention to supply chains, the informal economy, the rural economy,crisis and conflict zones, and high risk sectors, and should also support efforts
to build capacity in the countries most affected as well as to identify and share
best practices;
3. Partnerships and innovation
3.1	Promote global partnerships involving governments, employers’ and workers’organizations and other relevant stakeholders, including youth organizations,and children, as appropriate, to design and test innovative approaches on
the eradication of child labour and forced labour and to harness technology
wherever beneficial;
3.2	Promote active participation of all States, social partners and other stakeholders
in Alliance 8.7 to develop collaborative approaches to the eradication of childlabour and forced labour;
3.3	Promote increased funding, at all levels, for the fight against child labour andforced labour, encourage international organizations to increase technicalsupport, and improve coordination among funding streams with the aim ofdeploying funds, taking into account the socio-economic needs of States, toaccelerate the achievement of the 2030 Agenda deadlines relevant to childlabour and forced labour;
3.4	Promote subregional and regional initiatives aimed at the sustained eradicationof child labour, such as the Regional Initiative Latin America and the Caribbean
Free of Child Labour, resulting from commitments undertaken at the III Global
Conference on Child Labour (Brasilia 2013). Other subregional and regional

8 | childlabour2017.org

initiatives also constitute important platforms for the generation of concerted
policies and innovation involving relevant stakeholders aiming at the eradicationof child labour and forced labour;
3.5	Recognizing that enterprises should respect human rights, encourage them, inline with the ILO’s Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational
Enterprises and Social Policy and the UN Guiding Principles on Business andHuman Rights, to carry out due diligence in their supply chains in order toidentify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address adverse humanrights impacts of their activities, particularly in relation to child labour andforced labour;
3.6	Encourage governments to consider adopting and implementing policies,
notably preventive policies in their supply chains, including by evaluating andmonitoring their respective procurement policies, sharing promising and bestpractices in implementation and enforcement as fits their needs and involving,
meaningfully, relevant stakeholders to prevent child labour and forced labour.
For these purposes, enterprises also play an important role in securing theeffective abolition of child labour and forced labour; and3.7	Support widened sharing and application of best practices, as well as theimplementation of cooperation actions through strengthened international
development assistance, including North-South, South-South and triangularcooperation.

The participants express their gratitude to the Government of the Republic of Argentina
for hosting this Conference, and welcome the Government of Argentina’s intention
to bring this Declaration to the attention of the ILO Governing Body for further
consideration and follow-up.

i. Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) and Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention,
1930; Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87); Rightto Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98); Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951
(No. 100); Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105); Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111); Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138); and Worst Forms of Child
Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182).

ii. UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989; and its Optional Protocols, 2000, on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and on the involvement of children in armed conflict; andthe Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,
supplementing the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime, 2000.

childlabour2017.org | 9