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Despite significant efforts to identify and prevent child labour, approximately 160 million children globally remain affected by this harmful practice. Identifying, assessing, and remediating child labour is increasingly becoming a requirement under international human rights due diligence regulations, such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (“CSDDD”) and the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (“SCDDA”), which mandate that businesses undertake due diligence to prevent human rights harms, including child labour, within their supply chains. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”), the most widely ratified UN convention, emphasises the best interests of children and underscores the necessity for interventions from all actors—including businesses—that respect and promote the rights and well-being of children. Despite these frameworks, many businesses struggle to effectively implement mechanisms that adequately identify instances of child labour and provide an effective remedy.
This paper focuses on two key issues:
How existing grievance mechanisms and child labour remediation policies often fail to adequately address child labour; and
The suitability of OGMs for addressing and remediating child labour in accordance with international standards.
By exploring these issues, the paper aims to stimulate dialogue and inspire improvements in how businesses and policymakers tackle child labour, ensuring that child labour is not only identified but effectively remediated in alignment with the best interests of the child.
“This white paper is particularly timely as businesses face increasing pressures to understand the human impact of their operations in supply chains – including child labour. The Centre has dealt with over 1000 child labour notifications in the last few years. Our data from these notifications shows that only 0.2% of these child labour reports have come through grievance mechanisms. This shows that traditional grievance channels fall short in effectively identifying child labour, calling for a need to review and rethink existing approaches. This paper brings together The Centre’s on-site observations with the in-depth analysis of the experts at The Remedy Project. We hope this white paper can offer valuable insights to businesses.” – Ines Kaempfer, CEO of The Centre for Child Rights and Business.
“Operational-level grievance mechanisms have immense potential to help businesses proactively identify and address child labour within their supply chains, but the current reality is that these mechanisms often fall short due to their inherent limitations and the complexities of remediating child labour. This white paper examines the limitations and highlights how OGMs can be better designed and implemented to proactively identify instances of child labour and provide effective remedies that truly prioritise and uphold the rights of children first. We're proud to have partnered with The Centre for Child Rights and Business on this important work, which we hope will inspire businesses to critically evaluate and strengthen their approaches to tackling this crucial issue." – Archana Kotecha, CEO & Founder of The Remedy Project
The full white paper is available for download below and on The Remedy Project’s website.
About The Remedy Project
The Remedy Project is a social enterprise providing expertise in the fields of responsible business conduct, grievance and remediation mechanisms, and trafficking in persons. It offers solutions for businesses, governments, and civil society to improve protections for workers in global supply chains, and to combat trafficking in persons, forced labour, and other forms of exploitation. Please visit www.remedyproject.co for more information.
About The Centre for Child Rights and Business
We're a social enterprise that supports companies in child rights, ESG, and human rights due diligence to deliver improvements within their supply chains and yield positive business outcomes. Our mission is to promote supply chain transparency, improve corporate practices for businesses, and improve the lives of children and families by working with companies to strengthen children’s rights. Please contact us to to discuss opportunities to collaborate.
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