What you can do

Of course everyone wants children to be able to go to school and play, as in the Netherlands, but today there are still over 200 million children in child labour. Three quarters of these children do dangerous work in appalling conditions. The Guide for Businesses to Fight Child Labour contains concrete and useful advice about what you can do to fight child labour.

Where to start?
Businesses sometimes have no idea where to start. Our recommendation is straightforward: first investigate how your business may be involved in child labour and from there you can extend this to your suppliers. Are you sure they do not use child labour? If not, start by obtaining reliable information on the supply chain. Depending on what you discover you will have to decide which measures to take in order to prevent child labour at your suppliers. The guide can help you with this.

By adopting a thorough, step by step approach you can contribute to the fight against child labour. The good thing is that you are not alone – there are several organisations such as trade unions and NGOs that can help you determine your company’s corporate social responsibility strategy. The Dutch embassies and the EVD (the agency for International Business and Cooperation, www.internationaalondernemen.nl) are happy to help with questions about international business, including how you can take action against child labour. Embassies can help you get into contact with companies that have experience or a local consultant, or provide you with the contact details of civil society organisations. Together with customers, suppliers, employees, civil society organisations and local government, you can make a difference. We would be pleased to help you seize this opportunity.

ACTION PLAN FOR COMPANIES
To help you get started, the Stop Child Labour campaign has drawn up an 'Action Plan for Companies to Combat Child Labour'. Below you will find 10 tips for companies putting a stop to child labour.

1. Draw up a code of conduct
Include a clause in your company’s policy statement or code of conduct stating that your organisation fights all forms of child labour as prohibited by the ILO (International Labour Organisation) in the conventions C138 and C182. These conventions have been ratified by most countries. So there is no good reason for companies not to combat all forms of child labour.

2. Draw up contracts
Add a clause to your contracts with suppliers that they must eliminate child labour from all their activities and also from the activities of their suppliers. Support them in achieving this. Because the fact is: children are often hired for production work carried out by subcontractors, both by the first supplier but even more regularly further down the supply chain.

3. Provide education
Make sure that the children who formerly worked for your own company or – far more likely – for your suppliers and subcontractors are included in formal full time education. If you discover child labour at your suppliers do not simply send the children away. The children could easily end up in a worse position.

4. Do not promote dangerous work
Children aged between 15 and 18 who are allowed to work according to the ILO conventions must not become victims of the worst forms of child labour. Make sure that children under the age of 18 do not perform work that is considered dangerous by trade unions and employers.

5. Work together
Work together with others as much as you can to eliminate child labour, for example local governments, trade unions and local organisations. It is often difficult for companies with a great deal of child labour in their chain to get former child labourers to go to school. A structural solution is more easily reached when working together. 

6. Take extra measures
If necessary, take extra measures to solve specific problems that children from disadvantaged groups are faced with. Many child labourers come from these groups. For example, children may be discriminated against because of their parents’ work, their status as migrants or the ethnical group or caste (India’s Dalit children) they belong to.

7. Check IDs
Check whether the children’s ID cards are real. There are also other ways to establish someone’s age: such as a medical examination by a reliable doctor or interviews to determine a child’s knowledge level. You can also ask older local residents whether they know or can estimate the age of the children.

8. Widen your scope
Combine the fight against child labour with adhering to other fundamental conventions of the ILO and generally accepted workers’ rights. The other three fundamental conventions are: 1) the right to organise in a trade union and collective bargaining with the employer 2) the abolition of forced labour, and 3) no discrimination in employment and occupation. 

9. Pay well
Pay your suppliers a good enough rate so that they will not hire child labourers instead of adults (or, under certain conditions, youngsters aged 15 and up). Make sure that they can afford to pay a ‘liveable wage’ and provide good labour conditions. If necessary, adjust your company’s procurement policy to put the policy against child labour into practice and to make sure that the workers’ rights are adhered to.

10. Join in
Participate in initiatives to eliminate child labour from industries where it occurs often, including stone quarries, tourism, cacao, tobacco, cotton seeds, cotton, clothes, coffee, tea, rice and flowers. The best way to achieve this is by forming a coalition with other companies, trade unions and NGOs. As a multinational you can also sign an international framework agreement with one of the international industry-based trade union federations.

Do you have any questions? We will respond to requests for consultation  and advice on the guide to the best of our ability. Contact Leonie Blokhuis. You can download the 'Action Plan for Companies' here:

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