Vietnam’s rate of child labor is 9.1 percent, around two percentage points lower than the average in the Asia-Pacific region, an official told a workshop held in observance of World Day Against Child Labor 2022 (June 12) on Friday.

The 9.1 percent equates to more than one million children in the 5-17 age group engaging in labor, Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Ha cited results of a survey done in 2018 by her ministry, the General Statistics Office, and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The country’s child labor rate has been on the decline since 2012, when it was 15.5 percent, according to Ha.

However, the issue has lingered and tends to take place in informal fields, such as household enterprises and manufacturing and production supply chains, which makes it difficult to detect.

Therefore, the Vietnamese government has sped up multiple efforts to end child labor in all its forms, Ha emphasized.

In contrast with the Vietnamese trend, the global child labor rate has been on the rise due to the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Ingrid Christensen, director of ILO Vietnam.

About 160 million children, nearly ten percent of the earth’s total number of kids, are currently victims of child labor, Christensen said.

The director advised that Vietnam should step up poverty reduction programs and policies, increase vocational training opportunities for children, especially in rural areas, invest in a child protection system, and improve household livelihoods as a way to prevent child labor, contributing to lowering the global child labor rate.

Meanwhile, many enterprise representatives, who attended Friday’s workshop, suggested imposing heavy sanctions and even criminal punishments on child labor violators.

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