It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with around 40 field offices around the world, and employs some 3,381 staff across 107 nations, of whom 1,698 work in technical cooperation programmes and projects.

[4] The ILO's standards are aimed at ensuring accessible, productive, and sustainable work worldwide in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity.

Within the UN system the organization has a unique tripartite structure: all standards, policies, and programmes require discussion and approval from the representatives of governments, employers, and workers.

In 2024, a group of African countries that play a crucial role visited the International Labour Office, such as Morocco, where they held talks with the Minister of Economic Integration, Small Business, Employment, and Skills Development, Younes Sekouri.

[18] Also known as the "international parliament of labour", the conference makes decisions about the ILO's general policy, work programme and budget and also elects the Governing Body.

[37] And in December 1918, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) issued its own distinctively apolitical report, which called for the achievement of numerous incremental improvements via the collective bargaining process.

If these ends could not be immediately achieved, then an international body attached to the League of Nations should enact and enforce legislation to protect workers and trade unions.

Meanwhile, international delegates proposed three additional clauses, which were adopted: One or more days for weekly rest; equality of laws for foreign workers; and regular and frequent inspection of factory conditions.

[41] At the time of establishment, the U.S. government was not a member of ILO, as the US Senate rejected the covenant of the League of Nations, and the United States could not join any of its agencies.

During the Second World War, when Switzerland was surrounded by German troops, ILO director John G. Winant made the decision to leave Geneva.

This appointment (by the ILO's British director-general, C. Wilfred Jenks) drew particular criticism from AFL–CIO president George Meany and from New Jersey Assemblyman John E. Rooney.

Economist Guy Standing wrote "the ILO quietly ceased to be an international body attempting to redress structural inequality and became one promoting employment equity".

The first seat in Geneva was on the Pregny hill in the Ariana estate, in the building that used to host the Thudicum boarding school and currently the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

[60] The term child labour is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, potential, dignity, and is harmful to their physical and mental development.

[61][62][63] In its most extreme forms, child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – often at a very early age.

The ILO distinguishes between detrimental child labour, which hinders children's development and education, and acceptable work that supports their growth and learning.

', calls for reinvigorated global efforts towards achieving social justice and underscores the critical need for the universal ratification and enforcement of ILO Conventions No.

[3] After the turn of the twentieth century, the focus of laws in England shifted to protecting the country's borders from the supposed threat of foreign girls.

Initially, the ILO strongly believed prostitution was linked to vulnerable single working women emigrating to other nations without being under the paternal supervision of a man.

[90] Under the leadership of the French socialist Albert Thomas, the ILO created a medical division whose primary focus was on male sailors whose lives were viewed as "nomadic" and "promiscuous", which made these men susceptible to infection of STD's.

In order to make these industrial jobs more attractive, the ILO promoted better wages and safer working conditions, both intended to prevent women from falling victim to the temptation of the sex trades.

[93] In the 1950s, the UN Economic and Social Council and the International Police Organization sought to end any activity that resembled slavery, classifying sex trafficking and prostitution as criminal rather than labor issues.

[94] Coming out of the Conference in Mexico City, delegates pleaded with governments all over the globe to take action to prevent the forced prostitution of both women and children.

[95] As part of this investigation, Pasuk Phongpaichit, a Thai doctor who received her degree from Cambridge University, interviewed fifty masseuses and explored why these rural women were migrating from the countryside to Bangkok and why they chose to become prostitutes.

[96] An ILO Senior Specialist on Women Workers' Questions for Asia and the Pacific, Lin Lim, published another study directly influenced by Phongpaichit's findings.

Lim's study detailed the different social and economic factors that directly contributed to the growth of the sex industry in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

[96] The findings emphasized the economic reasons for and advantages of entering into the commercial sex trade, including increased wages, flexibility between work and home life and the ability to migrate.

The ILO has been involved with the HIV response since 1998, attempting to prevent potentially devastating impact on labour and productivity and that it says can be an enormous burden for working people, their families and communities.

In June 2001, the ILO's governing body adopted a pioneering code of practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work,[98] which was launched during a special session of the UN General Assembly.

Also, if a transition to a green economy were not to take place, 72 million full-time jobs may be lost by 2030 due to heat stress, and temperature increases will lead to shorter available work hours, particularly in agriculture.