While businesses in Asia Pacific have made significant strides in the field of child rights, there is still room
for improvement in order to have the agenda of child rights be fully reflected in their decision-making, policies, and practices, especially since a large majority of businesses in the region have partaken initiatives to rid child labor in their supply chains.
In 2021, a year that has been declared as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor by the International Labor Organisation (ILO), experts feel that businesses should play a more critical role in shaping the world in which children live through their actions, influences and command of resources. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are now stepping into their tenth year, and not very dissimilar to those are the Guiding Principles on Child Rights in Business. Based heavily on the BHR guiding principles, the latter have helped evolve a different perspective to child’s rights and business policies, processes, and decision making.
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Children’s rights in business also links to other issues such as product formulation, sales and marketing, environmental impacts, land acquisition, employment practises, and the way employees behave. However, businesses tend to miss the delicate issues, and lay focus on those similar to child labor. In a session organised by the UN Business and Human Rights Forum, experts from UNICEF, Center for Child Rights and Business, Global Child Forum, and other child rights civil society organisations discussed the wide range of business policy impacts on children and the role of multinational companies in hosting change for children.
The panel analyzed how businesses interact with children and impact their lives in the Asia-Pacific region, and discussed the challenges, potential solutions for businesses to identify and address potential adverse impacts on children. The shift in the knowledge and decision-making processes of the private and public sector to move towards responsible and sustainable business practices that respect children’s rights was also discussed.
Nina Vollmer, Research Manager, Global Child Forum cited a recent study conducted by her organisation to gauge the impact of the pandemic on children’s rights in the South East Asia region. Released in June 2020, the study concluded that job losses among adults had gravely impacted the children, along with school closures. It also expressed concern over the rise in child labor. “There is a generation of children that has been out of school for very long and many of these might never return. Companies can provide support by kick starting education initiatives for vulnerable groups, along with general access to the internet, which we know is one of the factors behind children not being able to receive education,” Ms. Vollmer said.
The report also said that closure of workplaces due to Covid-19 had led to many young people not being able to attend internships. For instance, in the Philippines, 3/4th of the internships was interrupted last year. She further suggested that companies should work to resume offices as soon as possible and provide new measures for youth employment. “We know that Covid-19 has had a harder impact on youth employment than adult employment,” she added.
Speaking for micro, small, and medium enterprises, Dalberg Advisors’ Layusa Isa-Odidi said that since they underwent a greater economic impact than large corporations, they were unable to offer any financial security to their employees. The women also discussed the impact of the pandemic on CSR activities among businesses, which, research shows, has undergone a breakdown in the APAC region. “Since MSMEs already function on lower budgets, they don’t have such activities. Larger companies could afford cutting down their CSR budget to provide some financial security, but here, there was no buffer between the employers and the employees,” Odidi added.
The panel also featured a young worker from Thailand, Huong, who discussed her experience as an underage worker. Huong had to start working at the age of seven years to provide economic support to her parents. She dropped out of school early and put all her time into earning a minimum wage. She had initially joined a factory where she had to practice a particular craft for hours every day, but then moved to work at Walmart after she became of legal age.
Since children fall into underage labor due to economic conditions at home, the pandemic has increased the risk of many falling into the trap. “Children are often impacted by the working conditions of their parents. Studies have shown that if parents have to migrate or work long hours, children are often neglected. Wage levels have a direct impact as it decides a child’s access to education and healthcare. However, even if young workers decide to leave school and begin work, they often find it hard to source decent employment,” CEO, Center for Child Rights and Business, Ines Kaempfer, said.
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Kaempfer further added that underag children are often provided fake identity cards by companies to avoid legal trouble. However, since awareness against child labor has increased in the last few years, a few companies have distanced themselves from hiring underage children, which has also led to them falling into occupations in the unorganised sector that rarely offer a good wage.
KK Chong, Head of Corporate Communications and Sustainable Development, Delta Electronics detailed the company’s extensive work against child labor. The Thailand based company has been engaging with child rights since 2009, and has been a strong advocate for the mission of sustainable development and child rights. The company also provides classes on energy and environment conservation to the children of their employees. “We have realised that child rights development is not just the responsibility of UNICEF, or similar bodies. We are more than happy to have our policies be analysed by expert groups, without which we won’t know the best practices in our industry,” he added.
However, Professor Surya Deva, Vice-Chair, UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights stressed on the need to have an approach that combines the role of governments and private sector, an integrated approach of regulation. He cited the introduction of National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights by the governments of Thailand and Japan, which will also include child rights in business. “While Japan’s NAP takes child rights as a cross cutting issue and tries to address trafficking, child labor, and a wide range of activities, the Thai NAP talks about the rights of migrant workers’ children. Since undocumented workers is a major issue in Thailand, this policy could be a game changer,” he said.
He further added that government action is crucial in the fight to obtain child rights in business, and private sector action alone will be insignificant to the cause. “The government here has twin responsibilities: discharge their application and signal other actors such as market forces, consumers, investors),” he added.
(The panel, as featured on the UN RBHR Forum, was organized by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF). The Forum will be hosting seminars on the topic of Business and Human Rights in the Asia Pacific Region through June 1st to 4th. Delhi Post will be publishingstories on multiple perspectives presented during the seminar)