Children's rights: why businesses should care more for children

Companies should go beyond simply avoiding causing harm to children and look to make positive contributions to their lives

theguardian.com, Thursday 15 March 2012 11.25 GMT

A seven-year-old child working at a balloon factory near Dhaka. Almost every company, directly or indirectly through outsourcing and supply chains - have an impact on children, often resulting in abuse of a child's rights or outright exploitation. Photograph: Andrew Biraj/Reuters

In February a factory making veterinary medicines in Pakistan collapsed, trapping many workers, some of whom died. Among the workers were young children. In a very different illustration of how business can affect young people, Christian Aid has said that every day 1000 children lose their lives "to disease and poverty in poor countries because of illegal trade-related tax evasion" and more because of legal tax-dodging practices. Last week, the Chinese government reported children in Guangdong are suffering from lead poisoning mainly as a result of industrial pollution, the latest in many similar incidents. These examples demonstrate that almost every company has an impact on children. After all, children make up a third of the world's population. The impacts might be direct, such as the case of the builder of two for-profit detention facilities in Pennsylvania, US, which paid incentives to judges to give longer sentences to juveniles. Or they can be much further removed, for example buried down a company's supply chain. It can be easier to engage with companies about children's rights than other human rights issues. Few business people would disagree that children have particular, and important, needs, and are more vulnerable than adults. It is also true, however, that many companies keep their initiatives to support children separate from their core business activities. For example, a mining firm might highlight its investment in schools around its mines in its corporate responsibility report, but fail to address the local community's concerns about children made ill by contaminated water supplies. This is why recent international initiatives are so welcome. This week UNICEF, Save the Children and the UN Global Compact launched their "children's rights and business principles". This important collaboration between the three organisations guides companies "on the full range of actions they can take in the workplace, marketplace and community to respect and support children's rights." The principles cover many areas, from combatting child

labour in the supply chain, to creating a work environment that is supportive of the role of parents, to ensuring that products do not harm children. This year and next, the UN committee on the rights of the child will be developing a "general comment on the rights of the child and the business sector", which will guide states in their implementation of the convention on the rights of the child vis--vis the private sector. And the mandate of the new UN working group on business and human rights explicitly asks the group to "give special attention to persons living in vulnerable situations, in particular children". Importantly, all these initiatives come from a children's rights perspective. This is different from a corporate social responsibility approach. While a CSR or philanthropic approach tends to be top-down, with the company deciding which issues it wishes to address, human rights start from the perspective of the individuals who are affected by a company's operations. Human rights rest on an internationally-agreed set of standards, in this case particularly the UN convention on the rights of the child. These two characteristics mean that a focus on rights, when taken seriously by a company, does a better job of protecting a company from risk or reputational harm than a focus on corporate responsibility. International attention on the ways in which business affects children's rights is increasing. Last year, my colleagues and I at Business & Human Rights Resource Centre launched an information hub on the subject. As with all areas of our work, its priorities are transparency, accountability and guidance: bringing reports about company conduct (both positive and negative) to a global and influential audience who can then take action based on the information; inviting companies to respond when concerns are raised about their activities; and providing access to relevant and practical guidance. Companies which are alleged to have abused children's rights can face consequences, including legal action. For example, Pfizer was the subject of lawsuits alleging that children in Kano, Nigeria were injured and died after it conducted trials of its antibiotic drug Trovan on them without having obtained the consent of the children and their parents. Suits brought in by both the US and Nigeria ended in settlements. In Uganda, a woman took her former employer, Stanford Equity bank, to court, saying she was unfairly sacked because she skipped one week from duty when she delivered her baby. This is not to say that business' approach to children should be all about avoiding harm, though that should be the first step. There are many positive contributions that a company can make beyond managing the impacts of its own operations. These efforts are particularly effective when carried out in partnership with organizations that specialise in children's rights. For companies to fully respect human rights, it is essential they examine the ways they affect children's lives and take the necessary action.

Questions on the text: In which ways companies can have a negative impact on children? What are the consequences if initiatives for children are separated from the core business activities? Why are the children's rights and business principles a better approach to safeguard children's rights than CSR?