Child labor

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.