"Wake-up call": World sees first rise in child labor in 20 years, U.N. says

Geneva —  The world has marked the first rise in child labor in two decades and the coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions more youngsters into the same fate, the United Nations said Thursday.

In a joint report, the U.N.'s International Labor Organization and the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said there were 160 million children laborers at the start of 2020 -- an increase of 8.4 million in four years. The rise began before the pandemic hit and marks a dramatic reversal of a trend that had seen child labor numbers shrink by 94 million between 2000 and 2016, the report said.