It Takes a Global Village to Tackle Child Labor on Farms
We can all play a crucial role to ensure that all children grow up in dignity. So, who’s with us?
Article
Some of world’s most traded goods—coffee, chocolate, tea, bananas, palm oil, and timber products—have human rights abuses, like child labor, embedded in their supply chains. In fact, the majority of children engaged in child labor worldwide—71 percent—are found in the agricultural sector.
There is no place in responsible business practices for child labor and other human rights violations. That’s why our 2020 Certification Program is shifting to an “Assess-and-address” approach, which goes much further than a simple prohibition approach in its ability to drive change on human rights. This risk-based approach focuses on prevention, collaboration, and improvement. It incentivizes farmers to tackle the root causes of child labor in collaboration with their supply chain, local government, and civil society, rather than hide it.
To further support farmers in their due diligence journey to prevent, monitor, and remediate the issue, we have developed a child labor toolkit. This step-by-step guide helps farms, businesses, and others to implement child labor due diligence, including risk assessments, mitigation actions, remediation, monitoring, engaging with children safely, and context behind legislation.
We call on you to take action to tackle child labor in your supply chain. Please contact us with additional questions.
Quick Links
Child Labor Toolkit
Our comprehensive child labor toolkit offers step-by-step modules to assess, mitigate, monitor and remediate child labor in agricultural settings.
Eradicating Child Labor in Agriculture
Read our position paper to learn how we tackle child labor in agricultural supply chains and rural communities.
Integrated Systems to Tackle Child Labor
Download this one-sheet on integrating our assess-and-address approach with CLMRS and Child-Labor Free Zones.
Addressing Child Labor on Hazelnut Farms in Turkey
Learn more about our community approach to addressing child labor in Turkey.
Our Work
How Our Assess-and-Address Approach is Tackling Human Rights Issues
Our assess-and-address approach focuses on prevention, engagement, and improvement of human rights issues, and incentivizes farmers and companies to tackle human rights issues rather than hide them.
Our Work to Prevent Child Labor on Guatemalan Coffee Farms
For the Rainforest Alliance’s Claudia Medrano, preventing child labor in Guatemala’s coffee landscapes is personal
Project Profile: Promoting Child Education in Ugandan Coffee Communities
With the overarching goal of reducing child labor within coffee-farming communities, this project aims to create specific impacts within the partner communities—generating insights for other stakeholders to follow within their own contexts
All resources for Child labor
Child Labor Toolkit Module 1: What is Child Labor?
This module discusses the definition of child labor in international and national law, the different types of child labor, and its root causes.
Child Labor Toolkit Module 5: Remediation
This module provides practical guidance on how to prepare for effective remediation and how to respond to and remediate cases of child labor when they arise.
Child Labor Toolkit Module 6: Monitoring
This module provides practical guidance on how to set up child labor monitoring systems in communities and how to monitor the effectiveness of your assess-and-address system.
Child Labor Toolkit Module 4: Mitigation
This module provides a step-by-step overview of the actions you can take to mitigate specific child labor risks. Actions discussed include awareness raising, training, child labor monitoring & remediation systems, income improvement, education, youth employment, and skills. Examples and partnership opportunities are provided.
Child Labor Toolkit Module 2: Assess and Address
This module provides a practical overview of Rainforest Alliance’s approach to tackle child labor through our 2020 Sustainable Agriculture Standard’s assess-and-address system. This system includes five due diligence steps: Commit; Assess risks; Mitigate risks; Remediate actual cases of child labor and Monitor.
Child Labor Toolkit Module 3: Risk Assessment
This module provides step-by-step guidance on how to conduct a basic and in-depth risk assessment on child labor and how to plan and track your mitigation actions.