A/HRC/9/20 page 8 B. Child labour 18. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” In many forms of slavery, which are hereditary, children are denied the basic right to be born free. According to data provided by UNICEF, globally, one child out of every six works.10 19. The Special Rapporteur will focus on issues of child labour as they pertain to economic exploitation. This is because the majority of the child labour that occurs today is for economic exploitation. ILO studies show that 69 per cent of child labourers work in the agricultural sector, 22 per cent in the services sector and 9 per cent in the industrial sector.11 In addition, the Special Rapporteur considered that other forms of child labour, such as sexual exploitation, are covered by existing mandate-holders. Therefore, focusing on economic exploitation of child labour will avoid duplication of work. Notwithstanding this, wherever possible, the Special Rapporteur will seek to complement or do joint work with other mandate-holders. 20. Irrespective of the fact that the number of child labourers, especially in hazardous work, decreased by 26 per cent globally due to the efforts of important stakeholders, the figures are still extremely alarming.12 21. Article 32 of Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes “the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development”. 22. As stated above, child labour impedes access of children to their basic needs. This means that, unless child labour is addressed, over half of the Millennium Development Goals (the Goals) are unlikely to be achieved by 2015. The Special Rapporteur would like to highlight the following Millennium Development Goals that are under threat: (a) Goal 1 (To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.) Poverty and hunger are one of the main causes of child labour. Increased globalization coupled with rising inequalities serves to increase the incidences of child labour around the world; (b) Goal 2 (To ensure that all boys and girls complete primary schooling.) In the majority of child labour cases, children working are missing out on education and therefore a chance to break out of the vicious poverty cycle; 10 See UNICEF, www.unicef.org/protection/index_childlabour.html. 11 See International Labour Conference, ninety-fifth session, Geneva, 2006, in the International Labour Office, The end of child labour; within reach. 12 Ibid.