The International Labour Organisation's (ILO), marking this year's World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL), carried the message: “Progress is clear, but there’s more to do: let’s speed up efforts!" To amplify this message, the ILO and the UNICEF jointly released a report on child labour on 11^th June during the ongoing ILC titled "Child Labour Global Estimates 2024, Trends and the Road Forward." The report reveals that despite a decline, the estimates still stand at around 138 million children (59 million girls and 78 million boys) in child labour, accounting for almost 8 per cent of all children globally indicating that there is a long road ahead for all the stakeholders to address it. Out of this, 54 million children are involved in hazardous work. This report also mentions climate change having both direct and indirect effects on child labour. This data and the report are crucial for monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending child labour by 2025. The report notes that the world has fallen short of this ambitious target and it shall have a bearing on multiple other SDGs.

The Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) acknowledges child labour as a priority area of work and undertakes multi-pronged strategy comprising of education, organising and campaigning under its broader campaign – ‘Decent Education for Children, Decent Work for Adults’. As a key member of Alliance 8.7, BWI and its affiliates worldwide reaffirm their commitment on the WDACL and align their efforts with the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions No. 138 and No. 182 and the SDG Target 8.7 to end child labour. Apart from capacity building, advocacy and awareness campaigns, BWI strongly pushes for incorporating anti-child labour clauses in collective bargaining agreements, promoting supply chain accountability and advocating for fair wages, social protection, and safe working conditions for adult workers as part of decent work.

BWI has been instrumental in bringing more than 18, 000 erstwhile child labourers under the schooling fold in South Asia and number of successful transformative stories documented by its affiliated unions is a testimony of the efforts of the BWI. One such story is from the Uttar Pradesh State in India, a boy named, Rajendra used to work as a child labourer till the local union – UPGMS enrolled him in their union-run school. He continued his education journey with support from the union and later his hard work paid-off as he secured a government job – it was like a dream for him that appeared very distant when he used to toil hard alongside his parents in making brushes, a common home-based work in his area. Today, he looks back at his journey with a sense of pride as he overcame difficult circumstances. Speaking on the WDACL, Rajendra called for collective efforts by all stakeholders and the community to ensure no child is deprived of education and a chance to dream of a better tomorrow and not lose the formative years of childhood in making an earning and supplementing the family income. Reflecting on his struggles, he identified social protection for the vulnerable families as a key pathway to effectively address the problem of child labour globally and called for universalising social security coverage by the Governments pushed by the trade unions and the civil society.

This year, selected affiliated unions conducted varied actions on 12 June 2025 to commemorate the WDACL, including rallies, awareness meetings and press conferences.