“Children’s rights in the garment and footwear supply chain: A practical tool for integrating rights into responsible sourcing framework”, June 2020

This guidance tool is designed to support companies in the garment and footwear sector to integrate child rights into their responsible sourcing programmes…, explor[ing] practical steps companies can take – individually and collectively – to ensure children are recognized as important stakeholders. Child labour and exploitative conditions for young workers are significant concerns…[and] working conditions in many garment and footwear producing countries lack adequate support systems for working parents, especially mothers. In the absence of family-friendly policies, children are at risk of poor health and nutrition, neglect and limited access to basic services, including childcare.

Over the past two decades, garment and footwear companies have…develop[ed] responsible supply chain management systems…, grounded in compliance – enforcing codes of conduct and auditing supplier performance against minimum commitments. These approaches have contributed to improved awareness and standards…occupational health and safety, working hours and child labour.

However, there is an increasing need to go...[b]eyond-compliance approaches…and seek to address underlying and multifaceted root causes. While these approaches often include child labour, they rarely address other impacts on children and working parents. They also tend to be limited to the workplace, failing to address wider impacts in communities where workers live. There is, therefore, a critical need to enhance these approaches to improve the lives of workers and their families and thereby contribute to systemic change…