Giving Compass' Take:
- Collaboration is crucial to address child labor violations and children's rights within the palm oil industry.
- Company partnerships leveraging resources to protect children and youth from being exploited are necessary to eliminate unfair child labor. How can donors help strengthen these partnerships?
- Read about fighting child labor to fight poverty.
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In January, we published a blog highlighting practical steps that palm oil companies can take to respect child rights and address child labor in their operations and supply chains. In June, the ILO and UNICEF reported that the number of children in child labor had increased from 152 million to 160 million globally — and these numbers are expected to rise as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect Southeast Asia. COVID-19 is expected to further obstruct efforts to eliminate child labor as more children are expected to drop out of school and fall into hazardous work.
We can see these impacts playing out in the palm oil industries in Indonesia and Malaysia. Companies wishing to eradicate child labor from their supply chains may be best served by looking beyond their own value chains to the wider context in which they source and manufacture products and by partnering with other actors to address structural drivers and systemic issues which require an industry-wide approach.
Why industry collaboration is critical
Companies cannot tackle child labor in isolation, given its entrenched nature and complexity. While greater progress is needed on engagement and collaboration with governments and civil society, forming partnerships across the palm oil industry can be an impactful way to systemically address the issue. Here’s why:
- Industry partnerships can be integral to the success of strategies needed to leverage companies and their suppliers to prevent or mitigate child rights violations through promoting awareness and understanding of complex issues, encouraging others to act and developing solutions together.
- Greater collaboration between businesses can identify and scale effective solutions and facilitate shared learnings while avoiding potential duplicated efforts. Individual company responses may not be as effective in tackling an issue rooted in poverty, for example.
- Increased collaboration can enable companies to share the risk and create a more level playing field.
A wide range of voluntary, business-led, industry-wide and cross-industry initiatives has emerged in recognition of this need for greater collaboration.
Read the full article about collaboration in the palm oil industry by Kelly Scott and Rosa Kusbiantoro at GreenBiz .