60th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council Item 3: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery including its causes and consequences

Mr. President,

My Delegation takes note of the report of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, entitled “Worst forms of child labor: assessing progress and persisting challenges.”[1] 

Child labor is a grave violation of human dignity, since every child is a unique and unrepeatable masterpiece of God. Exploiting them through labor, sometimes of the worst forms, is an ancient scourge and a betrayal of their innocence. It is also one of the most heinous assaults on their human rights. As Pope Leo XIII cautioned already in 1891, that “in regard to children, great care should be taken not to place them in workshops and factories until their bodies and minds are sufficiently developed. For, just as very rough weather destroys the buds of spring, so does too early an experience of life’s hard toil blight the young promise of a child’s faculties”.[2] Since then, this wound has remained open. 

In 2024, it was estimated that 138 million children were engaged in child labor, with around 54 million of these exposed to hazardous work that endangers their health and safety.[3] It is a failure for humanity as a whole that the “century that generates artificial intelligence and plans multiplanetary existences has not yet reckoned with the scourge of humiliated, exploited, mortally wounded childhood.”[4] 

The family plays a crucial part in tackling the root causes of child labor in all its forms. When the family is weakened by poverty, division, uncertainty, and despair, it is the children who suffer most, sometimes becoming victims of exploitation. In some cases, parents themselves give their own children to exploiters.

Mr. President, 

The Holy See is also deeply concerned about the continued recruitment and indiscriminate use of children in armed conflicts, as well as the growing misuse of digital technologies to radicalize them and incite their participation. These are scandalous and ongoing forms of child labor that the report rightly condemns.[5] Between 2005 and 2022, over 105,000 cases of so-called “child soldiers” were verified, and it is presumed that the real number is much higher.[6] In 2023 alone, the United Nations verified the recruitment and use of 8,655 children by parties to conflicts.[7] 

Pope Leo XIV recently called on those “in power [to] always keep in mind their responsibility for the consequences of their decisions and not ignore the needs of the weakest and the universal desire for peace.”[8] 

The Holy See therefore encourages States to work towards the universal ratification and effective implementation of the “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict”. This would be a significant step towards protecting children from the horrors of armed conflict.

Thank you, Mr. President.