Tag Archive for: COVID-19

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152 Million Reasons to End Child Labor by year 2025

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By CLC-member Timothy Ryan of Solidarity Center

By Timothy Ryan*

An African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child, but one can also say that it takes the whole world to protect one child. Children today are faced with increasing challenges. When children should be playing, studying and enjoying their short yet foundational period of childhood they are instead subjected to exploitation, violence, hunger and various forms of slavery.  The international community for decades has been making efforts to reduce inequalities and injustice for children, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) being the most recent global goals that the world has committed to achieve.

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We urge the governments to continue investing at least 6% of their GDP in children’s education and provide vulnerable families and their children with social protection. –Timothy Ryan, Global March Against Child Labour

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The goal that is closest to my heart and has been the driving force for me and my organization, Global March Against Child Labour is the SDG Target 8.7, which calls upon the world to end all forms of child labor by 2025. With only 5 years to achieve this compelling and challenging goal, today we are faced with yet another obstacle in our progress to end child labor – the COVID-19 pandemic which has brought the whole world to its knees.

When I first became the Chair of the Global March Against Child Labor in 2017, my hope and enthusiasm were spurred by the assurance that together as a world, we would be able to achieve the task of ending child labor by the year 2025. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic now accelerating again, I’m saddened to witness an unforeseen reversal in the progress made so far in our fight against child labor.  I’m grateful that the Global March’s Board voiced its support to re-elect me in 2020 as the Chair of the world’s foremost organization fighting to end child labor at a time when all our efforts to address this scourge must be re-doubled.

COVID-19 therefore is just another stumbling block in our struggle to bring all children to school and eliminate child labor. We still have 152 million reasons not to get bogged down, to continue pressing forward and to stand up for each of the 152 million children being exploited in labor and hazardous conditions. Now is the time that we as an international community –  the national leader, the district authority, the businessman, the trade union activist, the civil society member, the community representative – all come together to do our bit to ensure every child is able to enjoy his or her childhood and not let it slip away. This is the time for collective action – from moving beyond lengthy commitments and glorious speeches, to targeted, time-bound and measurable efforts, at the global, regional and local levels.

 

The Global March recently carried out a survey on COVID-19 and child labor with 40 of its civil society members from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The survey confirmed our fears, revealing that the world is likely to face an increase in child labor across sectors not only in the agriculture sector which is the largest employer of child labor, but also in the service sector, which will equally face an unprecedented rise in the number of working children. Girls who already face the double burden of school and household chores are predicted to be worst affected, pushing them out of school, very possibly never to return. Survey findings like these can instill a great uncertainty and concern, but this gives us yet another reason not to be daunted by the obstacles we all face in eliminating child labor.

The ILO is scheduled to issue a new Global Estimate on Child Labor next year. Whatever the numbers may be,  history and this moment demand that the year 2021 is the crucial year of serious, concerted action against child laborr and not just a feel-good commemoration of work already done.

At this critical moment, on behalf of the Global March members around the world, I call upon the international community to not only keep the focus on child labor alive but to breathe new life into this effort. We urge the governments to continue investing at least 6% of their GDP in children’s education and provide vulnerable families and their children with social protection. Governments must also continue taking necessary measures to ensure continuity of education for children especially in rural areas, through remote or physical means (as per COVID-19 conditions). All stakeholders must also ensure children involved in child labour in agriculture and the service sector are protected and given their due rights to access to education. Even in normal times it is unconscionable for children to be so exploited; now in the midst of the COVID pandemic, this crisis should never be used to justify existing or increasing child labour.

This moment in time is a test for all of us.  When we look back we will want to say we took measure of the daunting task in 2021 to accelerate the elimination of child labour and committed ourselves to use every avenue and tool at hand to do so.

[This article originally appeared at counterview.org. Photos are courtesy of counterview.org].

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*Timothy Ryan is the Chairperson of the Global March Against Child Labour and the Asia Regional Program Director for Solidarity Center based in Washington D.C, USA.

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Convention 182, Historic Commitment to End Worst Forms of Child Labor, Is Universally Ratified

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Governments Pledge to Root Out Hazardous Work, but More Protections Needed

by Margaret Wurth

[Originally published at www.hrw.org on August 5, 2020]

Margaret Wurth, Senior Research, Children’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch

 

MargaretWurtThe world reached an important milestone this week in the fight to end child labor. All 187 member countries of the International Labour Organization (ILO) have now ratified ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, committing to eliminate hazardous work endangering children around the world.

Tonga’s ratification of the convention yesterday marks the first time in history that a labor convention has achieved universal ratification. Ratification of ILO treaties catalyzes national reforms, and translates to concrete change on the ground.

Global commitment to end child labor is sorely needed, as experts warn the Covid-19 pandemic could reverse decades of progress. Widespread school closures and the economic hardships families are facing mean more children are at risk of missing out on education and getting involved in dangerous work. In May, UNICEF and Save the Children reported that without urgent action 672 million children could be living in poverty by the end of 2020, an increase of 15 percent in one year.

I’ve spoken to many children involved in hazardous child labor. Children in the Philippines relayed stories of diving into cold, deep, waters to mine for gold, breathing through an oxygen tube clenched between their teeth, and using toxic mercury to process gold they found.

In Indonesia, the United States, and Zimbabwe, children working on tobacco farms described backbreaking work cultivating and harvesting tobacco. Many told me they vomited, felt nauseous or dizzy, or got searing headaches while working with the plants – all symptoms of acute nicotine poisoning, which happens when nicotine is absorbed through the skin.

Poverty frequently drives children out of school and into child labor. Governments should invest in social protection programs to support families living in poverty, remove barriers to education for all children, and create strong laws and policies to identify and root out the worst forms of child labor.

Today is a day to celebrate. Universal ratification of the ILO Convention No. 182 is an important sign of a global commitment to ending hazardous child labor. But governments should take concrete action to protect all children from such work. And given new challenges posed by the pandemic, it is more important than ever.

Human Rights Watch is a member of the Child Labor Coalition.

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The Impact of COVID-19 on Child Labor

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By Ellie Murphy, CLC Intern

Combatting child labor during a global pandemic is a staggering challenge. In countries like Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Bangladesh—and dozens more struggling with child labor problems—school cancellations and lost family income may push children into the labor market. Once in, it may be hard for them to get out and return to school. In the face of this dire emergency, governments, the corporate world, and charitable institutions will need to support vulnerable families during this unprecedented time.  

CLC intern Ellie Murphy

There is a strong correlation between access to education and preventing child labor. An estimated 1.5 billion children are out of school. “Lack of access to education keeps the cycle of exploitation, illiteracy and poverty going – limiting future options and forcing children to accept low-wage work as adults and to raise their own children in poverty,” noted the children’s advocacy group Their World. 

With 9 in 10 children across the globe prevented from attending school in person, Human Rights Watch notes that interrupting formal education will have a huge impact on children and jeopardize their opportunity for better employment opportunities in the future: “For many children, the COVID-19 crisis will mean limited or no education, or falling further behind their peers.”

With many parents losing their jobs, children will face increasing pressure to supplement family incomes. Poverty is the single greatest cause of child labor. “Children work because their survival and that of their families depend on it, and in many cases because unscrupulous adults take advantage of their vulnerability,” notes the International Labour Organization.

Countries are being impacted by COVID-19 differently, but developing countries are expected to feel more negative consequences than developed countries, according to a WorldAtlas.com report, “How Are Third-World Countries Affected by COVID-19?” Tourism and trade helps fuel many of these economies and COVID is devastating both sectors.

Developing countries—primarily in Africa and Asia—already house 90 percent of working children, according to the International Journal of Health Sciences. Economic pressure from the pandemic will likely drive even more children into the work force.

Before the pandemic, child labor in West Africa was widespread—1.2 million child laborers were employed by cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast and 900,000 children on cocoa farms in Ghana, according to researchers from Tulane University. Ghana and the Ivory Coast produce about 60% of the world’s cocoa—a critical ingredient in chocolate. A recent Voice of America (VOA) article included predications that “…there will be increased economic pressures on farming families, and ongoing school closures in Ghana mean children are more likely to accompany their parents to their farms and be exposed to hazardous activities.”

 The VOA cited research by the International Cocoa Initiative that analyzed the impacts of income loss on child labor rates in the Ivory Coast and found that a 10% drop in income for families in the cocoa industry is expected to produce a 5% increase in child labor.  

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Why child labour cannot be forgotten during COVID-19

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By Jacobus de Hoop, Eric Edmonds

This article originally appeared on UNICEF’s web site on May 14, 2020.

By Jacobus de Hoop, Eric Edmonds
© UNICEF/Shehzad NooraniWhile collecting water, a young girl child stands holding her donkey near a water point outside her village in Sudan.

In just a matter of weeks, the COVID-19 outbreak has already had drastic consequences for children. Their access to education, food, and health services has been dramatically affected across the globe. The impact has been so marked, that the UN Secretary General has urged governments and donors to offset the immediate effects of the COVID-19 crisis on children.

In discussions of the pandemic to date, child labour (i.e. forms of work that are harmful to children) has played only a marginal role. Yet, as we describe in this blog, child labour will be an important coping mechanism for poor households experiencing COVID-related shocks. As global poverty rises, so too will the prevalence of child labour. Increased parental mortality due to COVID-19 will force children into child labour, including the worst forms such as work that harms the health and safety of children. Temporary school closures may have permanent implications for the poorest and most vulnerable. Limited budgets and reductions in services for families and children will compound the effects of the health, economic, and social crisis.

We expect millions of children to become child labourers due to a rise in global poverty alone.

Even in the highly improbable scenario of a short-lived economic crisis, the consequences of this increase in child labour can last generations. We know that children who enter child labour are unlikely to stop working if their economic situation improves. Instead, they will continue to experience the implications of child labour—like less education overall and worse employment opportunities—when they are adults and start families of their own. We also know that the younger children are when they start working, the more likely they will experience chronic health issues as adults. Moreover, we have ample evidence that stress and trauma in adolescence lead to a lifetime of mental health challenges.

How parental health affects child labour

Without plausible forecasts on the extent of morbidity and mortality globally, it is impossible to gauge the rise in child labour as a direct result of the health consequences of COVID-19. However, we do know that as parents and caregivers in poor countries fall sick or die, children will take over part of their roles, including domestic work and earning responsibilities, as seen previously in Mali, Mexico, and Tanzania. When desperation sets in, children can be especially vulnerable. One study from Nepal found that paternal disability or death was among the strongest observable predictors of engagement in the worst forms of child labour.

Curbing the consequences of school closures

There is ample reason to be concerned that the temporary disruption of schooling will have permanent effects especially for the poorest. Normally, when children stop going to school and start earning an independent income, it is extremely difficult to get them to go back to school. A study of teacher strikes in Argentina, for instance, found that even temporary school closures can result in permanently lower schooling and reduced labour earnings into adulthood as children who leave school early enter low-skill occupations.

However, it may be possible to curb the consequences of school closure. The global shutdown may limit the ability of children to start earning while they are out of school, potentially mitigating the chance that children will not go back to school. Moreover, the re-opening of schools can cause excitement for both students and their parents. Such excitement was widely reported in the aftermath of school closures due to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. A World Vision report from 2015 quoted an 11 year-old in Sierra Leone: “When school finally reopened on April 14, it was the best day of my life.” Indeed, in Sierra Leone children had largely returned to class by the end of the Ebola epidemic.

© UNICEF/UN0153927/Feyizoglu;Ibrahim (13) is a seasonal agricultural child worker from Sanliurfa, Turkey.

As extreme poverty increases, so too will child labour

The economic downturn brought on by COVID is widely expected to lead to an increase in global poverty. One World Bank model forecasts a rise of 40 to 60 million people living in extreme poverty this year alone. A UNU-WIDER study estimates that a 5 percent contraction in per capita incomes will lead to an additional 80 million people living in extreme poverty. Child laborers are a large share of the global population living in extreme poverty. We expect millions of additional children to be pushed into child labour as a result of an increase in extreme poverty alone.

Social protection is crucial to address child labour

Social protection programmes directly addressing poverty are critical to offset the worst impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on child labour. At the time of writing, 133 countries were actively working on social protection responses, including non-contributory cash transfers. Generally, social protection programmes help lower child labour outside the household and help households offset economic shocks. In Colombia, cash transfers helped offset increases in child labour due to absence of the father. In Zambia, cash transfers helped households cushion the effect of weather shocks.

It seems inevitable that, in the medium term, most countries will experience serious fiscal crises. These crises will likely be especially severe in poor countries with a revenue basis depending disproportionately on international trade, foreign direct investment or foreign aid. We expect fiscal crises to further affect child labour through declining social protection.

Likewise, funding for other publicly provided goods—like health, education, and active labour market policies, and enforcement of labour market regulations—is likely to decline post-COVID-19. Each of these could have implications for child labour. Reductions in school fees, for example, have played a role in encouraging schooling, and there is evidence from India that the impact of negative economic shocks on child labour was muted in areas where schooling was more affordable. We also have evidence from Mexico and Senegal that child labour declines when school quality improves. If school fees increase or school quality deteriorates post-COVID-19, a further increase in child labour seems likely.

Moving forward

Affordable, gender-sensitive policy responses should be designed to help keep children in school and reduce reliance on child labour. Policy responses that risk exacerbating the looming increase in child labour, such as public works programmes, should be considered carefully. Particular attention should be paid to the period shortly after lockdowns when schools reopen. This will be a critical window to prevent children entering paid work and community-level action is needed to ensure that every child returns to school. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who lose a parent deserve special consideration and support.

 

Jacobus de Hoop is manager of humanitarian policy research at UNICEF Innocenti. Eric Edmonds is Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. His research aims to improve policy directed at child labour, forced labour, and human trafficking.

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COVID-19: How Do We Deal with the “Ticking Time Bomb” in Agriculture?

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It’s been referred to as a “ticking time bomb” – the Corona virus and its potential impact on farmworkers– the incredibly hard-working men, women, and children who our fruits and vegetables and provide other vital agricultural work. Farmworkers perform dirty back-breaking work and are notoriously underpaid for it and at great risk from COVID-19.

Farmworker advocacy groups that NCL works with or supports like Farmworker Justice, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the United Farmworkers of America (UFW), the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, and a national cadre of legal aid attorneys have spent weeks strategizing about ways to protect the community which they know is especially vulnerable to the virus.

Advocates have reached out to administration officials and Congress for desperately needed resources to support impoverished farmworker with little to show for it. Despite their essential contributions to the economy, farmworkers have been cut out of the emergency relief packages.  The Trump administration has even revealed plans to lower pay for agricultural guest workers who sacrifice home and family to come to the U.S. to perform arduous farm labor. Advocates fear that decreasing guest worker wages would drive down low wages for farmworkers already living and working in the U.S.

“Sofia,” a 17-year-old tobacco worker, in a tobacco field in North Carolina. She started working at 13. She tries to protect herself from nicotine poisoning by wearing plastic trash bags and a mask. COVID presents new and scary risks. © 2015 Benedict Evans for Human Rights Watch

Farmworkers are poor, with extremely limited access to healthcare. Their poverty often means they work through their illnesses. The workers often toil closely to one another as they harvest fruits and vegetables; they ride to the fields in crowded buses and cars; they have limited access to sanitary facilities, including hand-washing. They often live in overcrowded, dilapidated housing.

The majority of farmworkers are immigrants from Mexico or are the children of Mexican immigrants. The community is socially isolated from main stream America. Poverty forced many farmworkers to leave school at an early age. It also causes them to bring their children to work with them in the fields—-child labor supplements their meager incomes. Language and cultural barriers further their isolation. NCL, through the Child Labor Coalition which it founded and co-chairs, has committed to the fight to fix the broken child labor laws that allow children in agriculture to work at early ages—often 12—and to perform hazardous work at age 16.

When the virus began to move into America’s rural areas, many socially- and culturally-isolated farmworkers hadn’t heard about the virus.  Some were confused that the grocery store shelves were empty; that the bottled water they usually buy suddenly cost much more.

In some cases, farmworkers reported that the farmers they work for have not told them about the virus or the need to take special precautions while working. Farmworkers face an alarming dearth of protective equipment. Many farmworkers groups, including the UFW and Justice for Migrant Women are urgently racing to provide masks and other protective gear.

A farmworker with COVID-19 is unlikely know he or she has it and is very likely to keep working and infect his or her family and coworkers. Recently, a growers group tested 71 tree fruit workers in Wenatchee, Washington, according to a report in the Capital Press newspaper. Although none of the workers were showing symptoms of COVID-19, 36 workers—more than half—tested positive!

The conditions faced by farm workers are a “superconductor for the virus,” noted advocate Greg Asbed of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in a New York Times opinion piece, “What Happens if America’s 2.5 Million Farmworkers Get Sick?” The answer, he concluded, is that “the U.S. food supply is in danger.”

The current circumstances reminded Asbed of a previous crisis: “A century ago in ‘The Jungle,’ Upton Sinclair wrote about how the teeming tenements and meatpacking houses where workers lived and labored were perfect breeding grounds for tuberculosis as it swept the country.”

“Now there is a new pathogenic threat and the workers who feed us are once again in grave danger,” said Asbed, adding that the “The two most promising measures for protecting ourselves from the virus and preventing its spread — social distancing and self-isolation — are effectively impossible in farmworker communities” because farmworkers live and work so closely together.

The looming food crisis is not just an American phenomenon, reported the New York Times, April 22nd in an article ‘Instead of Coronavirus, the Hunger Will Kill Us.’ A Global Food Crisis Looms. “The world has never faced a hunger emergency like this, experts say. It could double the number of people facing acute hunger to 265 million by the end of this year,” noted reporter Abdi Latif Dahir.

“The coronavirus pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. National lockdowns and social distancing measures are drying up work and incomes, and are likely to disrupt agricultural production and supply routes — leaving millions to worry how they will get enough to eat,” added Dahir.

 “Full Fields, Empty Fridges” in the Washington Post April 23, warned that in the U.S. the farm –to-grocery distribution system is breaking down under the strain of the virus and that farmers are plowing in fields of crops. The Trump administration has announced a $19 billion plan to buy agricultural products and get them to food banks, which are experiencing shortages and, in some cases,  lines of cars waiting for help that are over a mile and a half long. 

In the U.S., the federal government’s responses have been focused on helping farmers—which is fine, we all want farmers to be helped—but we cannot forget or neglect the needs of desperately poor farmworkers.

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COVID-19 and Child Labor

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COVID-19 and Child Labor

by Verité, an organization that improves working conditions worldwide through a network of over 120 employees, consultants, and partners.

As is the case in most crises, the most vulnerable in society will feel the worst impacts of COVID-19. Children, especially those from poor communities, are at particular risk of exploitation as parents fall deeper into poverty during the ensuing economic crisis and face appalling choices about how to sustain their families. Some may feel forced to send their children into the labor market while others seeking employment risk being trafficked for forced labor. COVID-19 may increase the risk of child labor in the following ways:

Schools are closing for indefinite periods of time

  • Children lacking access to the internet and technology, especially those from impoverished and rural communities, will be unable to participate in remote self-guided learning during school closures.
  • In addition to the immediate loss of learning, some students may decide to drop out of school permanently.
  • Experience shows that children and youth not enrolled in school are at a much higher risk of child labor.
  • When schools reopen, parents without jobs may not have the money to pay for school fees, supplies, and uniforms.

Freedom of movement is increasingly restricted

  • This makes it more difficult for community leaders, social workers, and civil society organizations to monitor and provide support to vulnerable children, putting them at a higher risk of exploitation.
  • Public health measures such as stay-at-home orders and curfews will limit access to hired adult labor, resulting in labor shortages and a demand for local workers, including children.

Relaxation of child labor regulation and enforcement

  • Proposals have already been put forward to lower the minimum age for child labor to cope with labor shortages in the coffee sector. It is likely similar moves from other sectors and countries will follow. Cash-strapped governments may weaken child labor law enforcement
  • Weakened child labor laws and enforcement will exacerbate already widespread violations of child labor law, especially in rural and agricultural sectors, where enforcement is more costly and time-consuming.
  • This could lead to increases in hazardous work and other worst forms of child labor, including forced labor and human trafficking.

Increased competition for resources and diminished economic opportunities

  • This will make it difficult for families to support themselves financially.
  • This may compel parents to put their children to work so that they can contribute to their families’ incomes.

Disease outbreaks leading to illness and death can disrupt family ties

  • Orphaned or highly vulnerable children who have lost one or both parents during the crisis lack resources and protection, making them vulnerable to child labor.

Reduced government capacity to support vulnerable children

  • There will likely be a reduction in free meal programs, health services, childcare services, and other social service provisions.

Although businesses must make hard financial and practical decisions during times of crisis, the moral and legal imperative to protect workers in company supply chains applies even more in these times of burgeoning vulnerability. Companies must identify risks, sustain commitments to human rights, and address the unique vulnerabilities of workers and children who are employed at the bottom of supply chains. Steps that companies should take to address the increased risk of child labor during the coronavirus crisis include:

Companies should conduct due diligence to ensure that pandemic response activities do not contribute to the exploitation of children.

  • Effective due diligence entails identifying and assessing actual or potential adverse human rights impacts and taking action to address them.
  • Business for Social Responsibility has created a rapid human rights due diligence tool to help with decision-making and the UN Development Program (UNDP) has developed a Rapid Self-Assessment for Business.
  • UNICEF has developed a guide for companies on integrating children’s rights into business policies.
  • For the agricultural sector, the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) has a library of resources to help protect workers during the coronavirus outbreak and printable materials to share directly with workers in English and Spanish that underscore preventive measures.

Companies must assess where risks are highest in order to prioritize interventions.

  • Countries that have high rates of child labor and human trafficking during relatively stable times will likely be more at risk during a pandemic.
  • The identification of ‘‘hot spots’’ will allow for more targeted interventions. Companies should communicate with suppliers in high-risk countries to understand challenges in identifying and addressing child labor and human trafficking during the crisis and encourage them to make protection of children a priority.
  • Companies may find information about child labor and forced labor risk in international child labor and forced labor reports published by the US Department of Labor, or in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report from the US Department of State.
  • Verité’s Responsible Sourcing Tool highlights the links between child labor and forced labor risks and helps companies understand risks of worker exploitation by sector and geography.

Companies must ensure that supplier policies provide sufficient support to workers and their families at the commodity level.

  • During the crisis, expanded policies should include sick and family leave for all categories of workers, increased health and safety protections, accommodations for remote work where possible, protections for workers laid off or furloughed, and an expansion of worker grievance systems.
  • Access a set of general principles drafted by Verité.

 

Companies must provide increased support for small-scale producers.

  • Companies must support small-scale suppliers with cash and credit to facilitate continued employment of workers, along with paid sick and family leave, and flexible working arrangements.
  • Companies should consider conversion of sustainability premiums to cash transfers or the creation of new, short-term, emergency funds to channel emergency resources to humanitarian organizations, cooperatives, and producer organizations in the areas from which they source.
  • Companies must remind suppliers about the importance of adhering to policies on child labor even during times of crisis. The ILO has guidelines for companies on developing strong child labor policies.

Companies must involve at-risk youth in the identification of needs for support services.

Measures must be taken to ensure support for children left alone due to the hospitalization or death of a parent or caregiver

  • This could include direct support for civil-society groups and frontline social-service providers (e.g. teachers, social workers, and youth groups) so that they can maintain outreach to vulnerable children and youth.

Through multi-stakeholder initiatives, companies can promote information sharing on support services available to children in sourcing countries.

  • These can include free meal programs, mental health counseling, childcare, remote learning opportunities, and birth registration services.

This article originally appeared on Verite’s web site on April 21, 2020.

For more information, contact Lisa Cox at lcox@verite.org.

Please send questions and topics for future articles related to COVID-19 in supply chains to covid19@verite.org.

The photo included in this article is used solely to illustrate the locations and situations in which risk of forced or child labor is being discussed. The people shown in the photo(s) do not represent any specific person or group of people noted in the text.

Photo credit: Nikolai Kazakov/shutterstock.com

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CLC members—the Ramsay Merriam Fund, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association—made this web site possible through their generous support.

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