1. Make explicit in your company’s formal policy or code of conduct that all forms of child labour falling under the two ILO Conventions will be avoided and, if need be, combated.
This is not self-evident, because many companies feel it is enough to combat the worst forms of child labour. The ILO itself has, unfortunately, contributed to this attitude, focusing its project work in 80 different countries on the worst forms of child labour (also see: ‘Seven reasons why the ILO should focus on all forms of child labour’, PDF). Given that both Conventions against child labour have been ratified by so many nations, there is no conceivable reason why governments and companies should act only against some types of banned child labour.
2. Make sure that company policy is based, at the very least, on the international conventions against child labour – and comply with national and local legislation if their standards exceed those of the international conventions.
So far, 149 countries have signed Convention 138, and 163 countries have signed Convention 182. Moreover, all ILO members have agreed that they have an obligation to respect, promote and realize the ban on child labour and comply with three other basic labour standards, even if they have not ratified the Conventions in question (also see recommendation 10). Where national legislation is more stringent, for example by imposing a higher minimum working age, companies are of course obliged to comply with such domestic legislation.
3. Make it explicit in contracts with your supplier(s) that they should eradicate child labour and realise labour rights across all sub-contracted operations.
Child labour is widespread in operations that companies have outsourced to other businesses. Moreover, ‘first tier’ suppliers also frequently outsource manufacturing to sub-contractors. This is no coincidence. In their attempt to cut costs, many companies outsource some or all of their manufacturing and service operations to low-wage countries, most often to developing countries and/or countries in Eastern Europe. Such outsourced operations frequently involve child labour or fail to comply with other labour standards. Cutting cost , however, can never be used as an excuse by a company to dodge its responsibility when outsourcing manufacturing or service operations. Companies should therefore have a written contract with their suppliers to ensure that the entire supply chain is free from child labour, to facilitate that children are released from work and start going to school, and to observe and implement labour rights. Achieving this in practice will require that the outsourcing company has the names and full contact details of all suppliers and subcontractors, and makes them available to the public.
4. Ensure that children hitherto employed at the company’s own plants, plantations or service operations, and/or in outsourced or sub-contracted operations across the entire supply chain, are transferred to free, full-time regular education.
Experience shows that companies acting against child labour frequently limit their involvement to merely seeing to it that the children concerned are removed and don’t feel inclined to facilitate their transition to steady schooling. There have been several highly visible examples of companies keen to rid themselves of the children who worked for them in order to boost their public image. One recent example involved fashion brand Esprit, which announced it intended immediately to sever all links with its supplier in India after the latter had been found to engage child labour. Businesses that simply make children ‘redundant’ and leave them to fend for themselves, behave highly irresponsible. Precisely because they have benefitted from children working for them, they have an even greater obligation to create or help facilitate the alternative to work – i.e. education. ‘Hybrid’ solutions, for example having children do part-time jobs and provide for school in the evening, are fundamentally unacceptable. Every single child is entitled to full-time and comprehensive schooling – not ‘separate’ but together with other children.
5. Make sure that children in the ages of 14 or 15 to 18, that are allowed to work according to international agreements and/or national law, are not engaged in the worst forms of child labour as specified in ILO Convention 182, and at least comply with agreements (required by the Convention) on hazardous dangerous work between governments, labour unions and industry umbrella associations.
Many children – up to the age of 14 or 15 but particularly those aged 14 or 15 to 18 (and often beyond) – fall victim to forced labour or prostitution, arerecruited as soldiers, or are engaged in hazardous work unfit for their age. Many examples can be found in industrial or service sectors. Considering that many children work in agriculture, yet another ILO Convention is relevant here: Convention 184 on Health and Safety in Agriculture, which includes, for example, protective measures required when working with chemicals (e.g. pesticides) and agricultural tools. One recent instance where such protection is not available is cottonseed production in India, where farmers growing cottonseed for multinational and Indian companies replaced some young children by teenagers up to 18 years old. The latter, however, are also exposed, without protection, to pesticide-spraying and the burning sun while working the fields for 12 hour or more at a stretch.
Companies should at least avoid that children do the types of hazardous work agreed on by government, unions and employers at national level, but can also decide not to hire(or allow sub-contracts to hire) children for certain work that is not nationally agreed on but which is nevetteheless considered hazardous by the companyt and/or other stakeholders. Work in commercial agriculture is often noton the agreed list of hazardous work, butby many seen (see example above) as very hazardous.
6. Involve your own staff and your suppliers in combating child labour: inform them and involve them in your company’s action plan against child labour.
It is very important to involve your company’s own employees in corporate policy which explicitly terms child labour as unacceptable – both in the company’s own operations and throughout its supply chain. Inform your employees about this ban on child labour and provide training to instruct them how they can contribute to the fight against child labour. The same applies to your company’s suppliers. Include a clause in your company’s contract with suppliers or other parties with whom it wishes to collaborate that child labour is prohibited, and also specify what this prohibition means in practice – at the very least an obligation to take concrete steps to facilitate that children who are taken out of the production system start going to school. Make binding agreements with suppliers to ensure that they, in turn, make sure their suppliers and sub-contractors meet the same standard.
7. Collaborate and team up with other segments of society, for example trade unions and local and/or national governments, to realize full-fledged schooling for former child labourers
Companies who find that their operations (or supply chains) involve large numbers of child labourers often find it very difficult or even impossible to get the children concerned to go to school. In most cases, companies should not attempt to set up or fund a school of their own, but team up with other organisations and jointly develop a more permanent solution. The preferred option, by far, is that former child labourers enter the regular education system. Where children cannot (immediately) enter a regular school, companies should, in cooperation with local authorities and civil society organizations, contribute to ‘bridging’ or ‘transitional’ education that enables somewhat older children to enter into the regular – typically full-time – schooling system. Research has shown that children who combine paid work with school do less well at school and run a greater risk of dropping out. Attention must be given to not create parallel structures to formal schooling. Bridge school should only serve as a transitional tool to mainstream children into formal fulltime education.
8. Make a special effort where needed to address the specific challenges faced by children from discriminated and marginalised groups so that they, too, can make the transition from work to school.
Many child labourers are from economically disadvantaged, discriminated and/or marginalised backgrounds. Children may be discriminated against because of the type of work done by their parents, their background, or the ethnic group or caste they belong to. Dalits (‘outcasts’) and Adivasis (tribals) in India, for example, are largely ‘overrepresented’ in child labour and even more so in bonded child labour. Many people feel it is ‘normal’ that children from such backgrounds are put to work and don’t go to school, and sometimes this way of thinking is encouraged by local vested interests. Although most child labour is often officially prohibited by law, there is considerable social and political resistance to combating it in practice. Explicitly combating all types of child labour banned under the ILO Conventions, across the entire supply chain, will make it easier to reach Dalit and Adivasi children who might otherwise ‘disappear’, be it ‘further up the supply chain’ or in other types of work. In addition, a special effort is needed to ensure that these children join children from other backgrounds in regular daytime schooling and don’t suffer discrimination at school. An additional effort is needed with a view to offering jobs to their parents or family members, who may need additional training and other types of social support to enable them to compensate for the loss of their children’s labour.
9. Verify the authenticity of age certificates and advocate jointly with other parties for the establisgment of reliable birth registration systems in areas that don’t have them.
A child or youngster’s exact age is often difficult to verify or even estimate. Age certificates may be false, particularly because many countries lack a reliable birth registration system. Age may also be assessed through other methods, for example a medical examination by a reliable physician, or through interviews to test a child’s knowledge (e.g. has it finished elementary education?). In more general terms, companies could contribute to the development of reliable public birth registration systems, as these are frequently lacking. Together with employers’ associations, trade unions and other actors in society, companies should be strong advocates for a birth registration system and thus speed up the introduction of such systems.
10. Combating child labour must always go hand in hand with compliance with the ILO’s other three fundamental labour standards and other broadly agreed-upon workers’ rights.
In addition to refraining from engaging child labour, the following generally recognized fundamental workers’ rights should always be observed: freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour, and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. These workers’ rights are fundamental human rights. In addition, the following workers’ rights are also generally acknowledged: the right to a safe and healthy working environment, a living wage, and no excessively long hours or forced overtime. A company which combats child labour cannot use that as a pretext for violating other workers’ rights. But neither can companies justify employing children because of their parents’ low income – the latter being precisely the area where companies can make a difference (also see action recommendation 5).
For a broad vision on corporate social responsibility, refer to the ‘CSR Frame of Reference’ document (edition of June 2007), in which 36 civil society organisations in the Netherlands – including the Dutch members of the ‘Stop Child labour’ campaign – spell out how they feel companies should honour their responsibility toward society at large.
11. Pay a procurement price to suppliers that enables them to avoid using child labour and hire adults (or youngsters over the age of 15) instead, offering them decent pay and conditions. If need be, also adjust other elements of your company’s sourcing policy with a view to implementing your company’s ‘no child labour’ policy and ensuring that fundamental workers’ rights are complied with.
Recent research on clothing and shoe manufacturing in Albania and cottonseed growing in India has shown that low prices paid by purchasing companies encourage child labour: low prices may induce suppliers to employ children, or cause parents whose earnings are insufficient for a decent life to put their children to work. Hence, procuring companies should not only demand that their suppliers refrain from employing children – they will also have to create the necessary conditions that will enable their suppliers to implement labour rights. Price is an important prerequisite to consider, but other purchasing conditions are also relevant. Late orders or bad procurement planning on the part of the procuring companies put suppliers under pressure: fearing that no new orders may be forthcoming if they don’t deliver on time, suppliers pull out all the stops to meet their deadlines – making their employees work long hours and taking on child labourers as extra hands. In many cases companies should be able to tell readily if workers are compelled to put their children to work at home in order to meet a production deadline. If an adult can produce five pairs of shoes in a day on average but delivers 10, it should be obvious that standards are being violated.
12. Whenever possible, try to transfer the job hitherto done by children to their parents or other close relatives, or offer them alternative suitable employment.
It may not always be possible or even desirable to transfer a child’s job to an unemployed parent or relative, but where this is an option, companies have a moral obligation to do so. Companies may also offer training to a parent or relative, to enable them to get a job at the company or elsewhere at no less than a ‘living’ wage. Another option, which has been put into practice by fashion manufacturer Levi Straus, is to continue to pay children their former wage on condition and as long as they go to school, and then offer them a job once they reach the ‘working age’.
13. Create, independently or working with others, facilities such as crèches and day-care centres for employees, to help them keep their children out of child labour.
Many children, notably in agriculture and small-scale production facilities, are subjected to child labour or introduced to the work gradually because their parents start taking them along to their workplace when they’re still very young. Pre-school and day-care centres can help to prevent that, while also providing playing and learning opportunities for children – and freeing elder children from having to look after younger brothers and sisters, a duty which prevents them, and girls predominantly, from going to school.
14. Plan and implement: pro-active investigations into the incidence and type of child labour in the supply-chain,, a solid self monitoring system, transparency on policy and practice, third-party monitoring and verification, and – crucially - involve those directly concerned and/or affected (the ‘stakeholders’).
An adequate management system, which should include the above elements, is indispensable for any company wishing to credibly assert that its supply chain is free from child labour and does not violate other labour rights. This applies in particular to industries, supply chains and countries or regions where child labour is widespread.
In industries where child labour occurs, it is not enough to say that neither the company itself nor its suppliers use child labour. The motto should be: don’t tell me, show me! Companies should not passively wait for others to confront them with child labour practices or other violations of labour rights – they should be proactive, and launch their own investigations, and /or have these conducted independently. Be transparent about the findings of such investigations, and state unambiguously what your company is going to do about it, independently or working with others. Civil society organisations and trade unions understand that child labour may occur in the supply chain, especially in those countries without compulsory education and weak, understaffed, absent or corrupt labour inspection services. In practice there is considerable appreciation for companies that are transparent about the issue, and take credible steps to tackle it. Verification of problems that have been identified, whether it be child labour or underpayment of workers, can only be credible if local organisations are involved in the monitoring process. This applies even more to making improvement plans, for example to phase out child labour and ‘guide’ the children to school.
Therefore, companies need to work with local governments, trade unions, and NGOs. A problem may be that such partners – government bodies, unions and NGOs – have little or no presence on the ground. In that case, companies should be able to demonstrate that they have done all they possibly could. One action they can take, for example, is to support capacity-building programmes of local unions and NGOs, and collaborate with them. If all else fails, the option of last resort is to pull out.
15. Participate in efforts to combat child labour in industries where child labour is rampant (stone quarries, tourism, cocoa, cotton (seed) and garment production, commercial agriculture -coffee, tea, rice, flowers etc. etc, through a so-called multi-stakeholder intiative and/or join, if your company is a multinational, an ‘International Framework Agreement’ with one of the sectoral global unions.
In industries where child labour is endemic, the practice might be very difficult or impossible to tackle if a company acts on its own. The best option for companies in such sectors is to work through multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI). MSIs are collaborative efforts of companies, trade unions and NGOs, and sometimes also involve the government, researchers and specialised institutes. MSIs have many advantages. For one, working together makes it far easier to share experiences in combating child labour. Secondly, companies can also share the costs of monitoring. Thirdly, and this is particularly important, by working together companies can create a new ‘level playing field’ in terms of costs when they, or their suppliers, have to hire more expensive adults. Finally, collaboration with unions is essential to give workers a say in fighting child labour and improving working conditions. However, multi-stakeholder initiatives should meet certain quality criteria. As stated, unions should be fully involved in the effort. Furthermore, the alliance should be aware of the risk that its most tardy members effectively set the pace of change. Therefore, transparency, the general public’s ‘right to know’, independent investigation, and campaigns if need be, remain necessary ingredients of the overall effort so as to keep the members of the alliance focused. A good example of an MSI in the fashion industry is the Fair Wear Foundation.
Another potentially effective option would be for a multinational company to enter into an ‘international framework agreement’ with a global trade union federation that it routinely negotiates with, to spell out the labour rights to be observed (and avoiding and combating child labour!) for all its employees at all its sites around the world, whether in its own operations or in its supply chain.
