Speaking at his weekly general audience Francis further lamented that in many natinos, people were being exploited in the unofficial, underground economy, working without benefits or legal protection.
"Let's think of the victims of work, of children who are forced to work. This is terrible," he announced.
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The U.N. International Labour Organization (ILO) announced in a report last year that the number of children in labor increased to roughly 160 million worldwide in 2020.
"Children who are at an age when they should be playing are forced to work like adults. Let's think of those children, poor little things, who scour in garbage dumps looking for something useful to trade or sell," the Pope announced in remarks that were mostly improvised.
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The ILO report, done with the U.N. children agency UNICEF, stated progress to end child labor had stalled for the first time in 20 years at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, reversing a prior downward trend.
He announced that lack of work was a "social injustice" and that while charity and handouts for the jobless were important, they filled the stomach though did not dispense dignity.
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"Governments must give everyone the possibility of earning their bread because this gives them dignity. Work anoints people with dignity," he stated.
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According to the ILO, Africa has the largest number of child workers in the world, with roughly 72 million, nearly 43% of them doing hazardous work.
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At the audience, Francis asked for a moment of silence to remember the unemployed, victims of industrial accidents and those who had taken their own lives after losing their jobs because of the pandemic.
"It's an extraordinary privilege to be sitting in that room when the Holy Father does 'a review of the world'," said Ambassador Christopher John Trott as he revealed how impressed he was by the sheer breadth of Pope Francis' vision and by his very tangible concern for the state of the world.
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Despite over thirty years in the job, he spoke of real pleasure and emotion in hearing "in the Pope's voice," his deep concern for "the things that matter to him, both personally and to the Vatican as a State and as the Catholic Church."
One issue Ambassador Trott focused on at length was the power of the Pope's plea "to ensure that everyone has access to vaccines, and then on top of that, that everyone takes their vaccine."
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In his discourse, Pope Francis defined vaccination as a "moral obligation" for the common good, and he reached for a comprehensive commitment on the part of the international community so that the whole world population can have equal access to fundamental medical care and vaccines.
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"I think there was a very deliberate choice of words to remind people that you're protecting not just yourself when you have a covid vaccine, but you're actually protecting the people around you and you're making a contribution to the society's health by having the vaccine," the Ambassador announced, remarking on how the Pope's message today is a very clear invitation and "a reflection of where we are in the Omicron wave."
The British diplomat noted that the Holy Father tackled the issue at "an individual level, at a societal level, at a regional level, and at a global level." It was a reminder, he stated, that we all have various levels of responsibility: "from the individual needing to be vaccinated, all the way through to governments in the North, including my own, and ensuring that people in the global South have access to vaccines in order to be able to stop the spread of the current wave."
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