Just three years away from achieving SDG Target 8.7, which calls for an end to child labour in all its forms, the world has agreed to the Durban Call to Action, a document that includes concrete commitments to end child labour for good. This agreement is the outcome of the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, held in Durban, South Africa, 15-20 May 2022.

Immediate and effective measures that the Durban Call requests to include support for cooperative actions and spaces and for the ILO's leadership role, in particular through regional initiatives such as the Regional Initiative Latin America and the Caribbean Free of Child Labour a model that other regions could adapt to their circumstances.

"In the region, we have made progress in the eradication of child labour in a sustained way over the last 15 years despite the global trend. This is due to a good combination of public policies to fight child labour", emphasized Philippe Vanhuynegem, Chief of the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Branch, ILO, during the thematic session promoted from Latin America and the Caribbean: "Innovation and partnership: the formula for a region that is moving closer to ending child labour ". In this space for exchange, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean presented the main components of the formula that has made it possible to sustain progress against this reality: a shared political agreement, a regional investment with local impact and a network of alliances for the sustained reduction of child labour.

The Durban Call to Action includes commitments in six different areas:

1. Make decent work a reality for adults and young people above the minimum working age by accelerating multi-stakeholder efforts to prevent and eliminate child labour, prioritising the worst forms of child labour.
2. End child labour in agriculture.
3. Strengthen the prevention and elimination of child labour, including its worst forms, forced labour, modern slavery and trafficking in persons, and the protection of survivors through data-driven and survivor-informed policy and programmatic responses
4. Understand the right of children and adolescents to education and guarantee universal access to free, compulsory, quality, equitable and inclusive education and training.
5. Achieve universal access to social protection.
6. Increase financing and international cooperation for the elimination of child labour and forced labour.

More than 1,000 delegates from governments, employers' and workers' organisations, UN agencies, civil society and regional organisations attended the conference in Durban. They were joined by another 7,000 online participants.

"We have more than enough reasons to put an end to child labour: 8.2 million children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean and 160 million globally," stressed Pilar Rodríguez, Chief Technical Advisor of the Regional Initiative Latin America and the Caribbean Free of Child Labour, during her intervention at the 5th Global Conference.