World Day Against Child Labour is being observed across the globe today. The aim is to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. <br/><br/>This year the focus is on the impact of conflicts and disasters on child labour. The day brings together governments, employers and workers organizations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child labourers and what can be done to help them. <br/><br/>Nobel laureate and noted child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi has said the global community needs to engage and focus all over again with a sense of urgency on the menace of child labour. <br/><br/>He said children constitute one third of the total population of the world but account for more than fifty per cent of refugees. In the last decade, close to 10 million children have been killed in conflict and more than six million have become physically disabled. <br/><br/><br/>According to the United Nations, over one-and-a-half billion people live in countries that are affected by conflict, violence and fragility.<br/><br/>At the same time, around 200 million people are affected by disasters every year. A third of them are children. <br/><br/>A significant proportion of the 168 million children engaged in child labour live in areas affected by conflict and disaster. Conflicts and disasters have a devastating impact on people's lives. <br/><br/>They kill, maim, injure, force people to flee their homes, destroy livelihoods, push people into poverty and starvation and trap people in situations where their basic human rights are violated. <br/><br/>Children are often the first to suffer as schools are destroyed and basic services are disrupted. Ultimately, millions of children are pushed into child labour by conflicts and disasters.<br/><br/>