Child Labour: The new reality for refugee children

The number of child laborers in Jordan has more than doubled in the period between 2008 and 2017, to an estimated 70,000 child laborers among Jordanians and Syrians. While there is a lack of data, the situation is expected to be similar in Lebanon. Child labor in disaster settings is very common, emergencies make children e3xponenitally vulnerable to labour. Families who normally would be able to absorb regular “shocks” (such as family death, a bad harvest, or unemployment) and avoid sending children to the workforce, are thrown completely into disarray in conflicts.

This brief provides an overview of the problem injunction with the Syria conflict, prevention and response to child labor, and Save the Children’s approach to address the problem.