Child Rights Risks in Global Supply Chains: Why a ‘Zero Tolerance’ Approach is Not Enough

The Centre for Child Rights & Business and Save The Children Deutschland have published a study on Child Rights Risks in Global Supply Chains: Why a ‘Zero Tolerance’ Approach is Not Enough.

The study involved 20 assessments across eight countries, with over 2,751 parents and 1,799 children interviewed, and focused on areas such as child labour, education, childcare, and young worker protection. The study also took into account other variables, including working conditions, gender, human trafficking, and forced labour.

The report recommends various strategies and ways to identify and address child rights violations in global supply chains.

Key findings include:

• Child labour is Almost Endemic, with direct evidence of child labour found in 10 of 20 assessments, and a very high risk of child labour in eight of the remaining 10 assessments;
• Low Income and High Education Costs are Driving Child Labour, incomes in all assessed countries and sectors are significantly lower than the living wage, leading to poverty and denying children and families their basic rights;
• Lack of Formalisation is a Multiplier of Child Rights Risks in key sectors, where informal work involves low wages and deprives workers and families of access to social security and lacks health and safety protection;
• Zero-tolerance policies are Marginalising Youth and driving them towards hazardous work;
• Manufacturing Industry: No Access to Childcare is an ongoing challenge affecting all workers, particularly impacts female migrant workers, who are forced to leave their children in the care of their extended families;
• Agriculture: Farmers Depend on their Children’s Contribution and most agriculture communities rely heavily on children’s involvement on their family farms;
• Worst forms of hazardous child labour are found in the mining sector, specifically artisanal and small-scale Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.