Ending Child Labour, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking in Global Supply Chains
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ending child labour, forced labour and human trafficking in global supply chains 2 ENDING CHILD LABOUR, FORCED LABOUR AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ending child labour, forced labour and human trafficking in global supply chains International Labour Organization (ILO) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) International Organization for Migration (IOM) United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 4 ENDING CHILD LABOUR, FORCED LABOUR AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS INTRODUCTION 5 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE By adopting the Sustainable Development Goals Labour and Youth Employment, November 2017, which (SDGs), the international community has committed called for “research on child labour and forced labour to end child labour by 2025 and forced labour and and their root causes … pay[ing] particular attention to human trafficking by 2030. According to the latest supply chains”. global estimates, 152 million children are in child labour and 25 million adults and children are in forced This report seeks to inform public and business labour, including in global supply chains. To achieve policies and practices in order to prevent child labour, SDG target 8.7, governments, business, social part- forced labour and human trafficking linked to global ners, the financial sector and civil society must take supply chains. It also recognizes the multidimensional strong action to address the root causes and determi- nature of these violations and the smart policy mix nants of these human rights violations at work. necessary to address them. It considers not only Global supply chains have the potential to generate the risk factors and policy interventions related to growth, employment, skill development and addressing the vulnerability of people, but also the technological transfer. Nevertheless, decent work unique complexity of global supply chains that can deficits and human rights violations, including child hide abuse and the links with informality and labour labour, forced labour and human trafficking, have been migration. linked to global supply chains. All actors operating in this context have a responsibility to ensure that these The report is divided into two parts. PART 1, human rights violations at work are addressed. Understanding child labour, forced labour and human trafficking in global supply chains, This report presents the joint research findings and presents empirical evidence on the prevalence and conclusions on child labour, forced labour and human an array of risk factors related to child labour, forced trafficking linked to global supply chains from the labour and human trafficking linked to global supply ILO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation chains. In particular, it looks at how, in the absence and Development (OECD), the International of strong law enforcement, the socio-economic Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United vulnerability of individuals and workers, along with Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), under the aegis of economic and commercial pressures facing suppliers the Alliance 8.7. It is the first attempt by international within global supply chains, can in combination lead organizations to measure child labour, forced labour to abuses. PART 2, Responding to child labour, and human trafficking in global supply chains. forced labour and human trafficking in global supply chains, provides two policy perspectives. The report responds to the Ministerial Declaration On the one hand, it provides a comprehensive of the July 2017 meeting of the Group of Twenty overview of the State’s duty to regulate and (G20) Labour and Employment Ministers, asking “the implement legal frameworks to protect workers International Organisations in cooperation with the and mitigate the vulnerability to abuse, and to Alliance 8.7 for a joint report containing proposals on provide access to remedies with good practices and how to accelerate action to eliminate the worst forms policy tools; and, on the other hand, it presents of child labour, forced labour and modern slavery in the necessary smart policy mix to facilitate and global supply chains including identifying high risk incentivize responsible business conduct in global sectors, and how to support capacity building in the supply chains. countries most affected”. It also responds to the Buenos Aires Declaration on Child Labour, Forced 6 ENDING CHILD LABOUR, FORCED LABOUR AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS 7 PART 1. UNDERSTANDING CHILD LABOUR, FORCED LABOUR AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING LINKED TO GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS: A REVIEW OF EVIDENCE ON PREVALENCE AND RISK FACTORS MEASUREMENT OF CHILD LABOUR AND associated with global supply chains, and overcomes TRAFFICKING FOR FORCED LABOUR IN some of the measurement challenges described GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS above. The ICIO tables describe monetary flows of intermediate and final goods and services among countries, hence allowing inter-industry and inter- While it is possible to estimate with growing precision country transactions to be recorded and analysed. This the total number of people in child labour and forced global interconnectedness captured by the ICIO tables labour, determining how many of these people are in means that the use of an industry’s output by other production and consumption linked to global supply domestic and foreign industries can be identified. chains remains a significant challenge. The goods Conversely, for a particular industry, using the ICIO and services we buy are composed of inputs from tables, it is possible to determine the inputs required many countries around the world and are processed, from home and abroad to generate a unit of total assembled, packaged, transported and consumed output. across borders and markets. Mapping these intricate supply chains, or, to use a more descriptive metaphor, The total inputs needed to produce a product can supply “webs”, is complex, and identifying where and therefore be determined using the ICIO tables, and to what extent child labour and forced labour occur these can be either direct or indirect. Direct inputs along them is even more so. represent the contribution of an industry in a specific country related to the production of goods and A growing number of mixed methods and sectoral services for export, whereas indirect inputs represent surveys are providing valuable localized insights into the contribution of other upstream industries that are child labour, forced labour and human trafficking in incorporated in the production of goods and services production settings linked to global supply chains. for export along the supply chain. Efforts by some businesses are also contributing to this understanding, as they map labour rights violation The ICIO and child labour data permit the estimation risks in the context of their human rights impact of the child labour involved in the production of goods assessments and transparency efforts. and services for the domestic and foreign markets. This is the first time that data sets from the OECD, The empirical analysis undertaken for this report ILO, IOM and UNICEF have been combined, and it is allows estimation of which parts of global supply the first time such methodology has been applied to chains are particularly exposed to child labour and measure these human rights violations in global supply trafficking for forced labour at regional and industry chains. levels. Given data availability constraints, the results are presented in more depth when assessing the Data limitations necessitated a number of assumptions prevalence of child labour in global supply chains, in developing the methodology, and the results while the methodology should be considered as should therefore be interpreted with caution. In applied to trafficking for forced labour on a more the absence of data on the division of child labour experimental basis. between domestic and export markets by industry, the methodology assumes each unit of production in The analysis presented in the report combines data a given industry (whether it is part of global supply from the OECD Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) chains or not) uses the same amount of child labour. tables with 65 available nationally probabilistic The implication of this assumption results in an child labour data sets – representing 50 per cent of underestimation of child labour in global supply chains the estimated children in child labour in the world in industries and countries where child labour is – to help determine the prevalence of child labour disproportionately concentrated in export production, 8 ENDING CHILD LABOUR, FORCED LABOUR AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS and an overestimation in industries and countries While the results demonstrate that a child in child where child labour is disproportionately concentrated labour is far more likely to be involved in production in domestic production. Once more data are available for the domestic economy, there is however a non- for countries by industry, it will be possible to refine negligible risk that this child will be contributing to and update the results. global supply chains. Considerably more child labour appears to be linked to domestic production and It should also be noted that Europe, Northern America consumption within those regions where children and Oceania are not included in the analysis due to in child labour are mainly involved in family-based lack of available data. Additionally, while the published subsistence