In the media
Child labour during pandemic - UNU-WIDER expert interviewed for a Finnish development news portal

The article is based on a seminar organized by The Trade Union Solidarity Centre of Finland (SASK) and Save the Children Finland 2nd June 2021. Nyyssölä was one of the expert panelists of the seminar.

In the interview Nyyssölä explains how the decline of child labour in developing countries before the coronavirus pandemic was due to better education possibilities and improved legislation, and the general positive financial development of many countries. During coronavirus pandemic the positive development was reversed, which increased the use of child labor.

Nyyssölä continues that social security programmes, when designed well, are an effective way to decrease the use of child labor. She shares an example: conditional cash transfer programmes, where a family only receives financial allowance if the child goes to school, have proven to be good ways to remove the need of child labor. In Columbia, for instance, cash transfers have decreased the use of child labor by 15 percent, in Nicaragua 14-20 percent.

2021 is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.

Read the whole article online (in Finnish):

Maailma.net: Maailman piti päästä eroon lapsityöstä, mutta kehitys on kääntynyt jyrkkään alamäkeen – ”Intiassa kestää ainakin kymmenen vuotta päästä pandemiaa edeltävään tilanteeseen”