Emerging markets such as Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Pakistan are child labour hotspots, according to a new study that warns British companies of the risks of sourcing goods from them.
A number of UK high-street retailers, including Primark and Monsoon, have been caught up in recent exposés of labour practices through rogue suppliers.
Now the 2011 Child Labour Index compiled by the risk analysis firm Maplecroft has illustrated the scale of the global child labour problem, with 68 countries ranked as being of "extreme risk" due to the level of abuse.
Child workers are most frequently employed in clothing manufacturing, and Maplecroft says 70% of them work in the countryside, making them harder to trace.
The index rates 196 countries. Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Pakistan were among the dozen countries with the worst score – zero out of a possible 10. The others were Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Burma, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
China, which is often dubbed the workshop of the west, had the 13th worst score, with a lowly 0.02. Maplecroft said there were no official statistics on child workers in China because the government classifies the information as "state secrets", but the number is estimated to be between 10 million and 20 million.
Monique Bianchi, a Maplecroft analyst, said: "These large emerging economies are essential to the strategic interests of multinational business. Not only is child labour wrong but the existence of child labour within a company's value chain can have significant impacts on reputation and profits and it is critical that companies undertake stringent monitoring of all suppliers."
The index shows the situation has deteriorated since last year, partly as a result of the global recession, which forced children to work to help support their families, and the number of countries ranked as "extreme" or "high risk" increased from 115 to 120. The average country score declined from 4.3 in 2009 to 4.2.
According to the International Labour Organisation, there are more than 200 million children working throughout the world, many full time. Of these, one in 12 is in a hazardous job such as mining.
India, the worst rated of the vaunted Bric economies, scored zero, as it did last year. Its government figures suggest it has up to 16.4 million child labourers – although the US state department puts that figure closer to 55 million.
The problem is most marked in agriculture, including hybrid seed production, where Unicef says private companies employ 200,000 children in Andhra Pradesh alone.
