NEW DELHI: Millions of child labourers and legally employed adolescents face "systemic" violence, ranging from physical or verbal abuse to sexual harassment, rape and even murder, according to a new "World Report on Violence Against Children" released on the Universal Children's Day.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO), which contributed to the study, called for zero tolerance of violence against the estimated 218 million child labourers and some 100 million adolescents legally employed worldwide.

Although global figures are unobtainable, thanks to the "hidden" nature of the problem and children's difficulties in reporting violence, ILO researchers have found that in some areas, most working children face violence — verbal, physical or sexual.

It is often "part of a collective workplace culture of physical brutality, shouting, bad language, and casual violence including sexual harassment, and in extreme cases, even rape or murder."

These children represent the most vulnerable group amid a generalised global increase in violence at the workplace.

Categories at risk

According to the report, some categories are particularly at risk of violence: domestic workers, youth in the informal economy, children in debt bondage and modern forms of slavery, and those doing hazardous work.

The world's 5.7 million children in forced and bonded labour, including a significant proportion of victims of trafficking, are also at constant risk of violence.

In 2004, more than 60 per cent of the world's 218 million working children were deemed to be in `hazardous' workplaces such as glass factories, mines, and plantations and other forms of agriculture where health and safety regulations are often lax or non-existent.

What is more, some situations of working children are tantamount to violence by their very nature, including sexual exploitation and trafficking. A blatant example is exploitation of children under 18 in prostitution, pornography or sex shops.

The report calls for comprehensive approaches addressing the economic and cultural causes of child labour, promotion of education and alternative livelihood, and social mobilisation to change attitudes to child labour and violence against children.

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