Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company, has reiterated that child labour has no place in its supply chain, as it continues to assess and address human rights impacts across its business activities.
Over the past years, Nestlé has been at the forefront of corporate actions to eliminate child labour, forced labour in Central and West Africa.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), over 150 million children worldwide are employed in child labour.
In 2012, Nestlé became the first company in the food industry to become an affiliate partner of the Fair Labour Association and drew up the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) in response to a report that mapped its cocoa supply chain in Côte d’Ivoire.
A recent report by “Stop The Traffik”, a human trafficking prevention organisation, further revealed that Nestlé’s CLMRS is the most comprehensive yet to help children working in cocoa production.
The system identifies cases of child labour (or children at risk) within Nestlé’s supply chain and provides targeted solutions to prevent similar situations going forward.
Children are monitored on an ongoing basis until they turn 18, allowing for the effectiveness of solutions to be assessed.
Nestlé’s commitment is made more relevant in light of the recent pledges by world leaders at the G20 summit in Hamburg earlier this year to take effective measures for elimination of child labour by 2025.
Kais Marzouki, Nestlé Market Head for Central and West Africa said, “We are focused on respecting and promoting human rights, and combating child labour is one of the ways we do so. Our efforts have seen child labour reduced by 51% over a three-year period in our supply chain.”
In Central and West Africa, Nestlé trains women in effective dialogue and grievance-handling mechanisms to provide them a clear path to obtain advice when needed.
To improve their financial autonomy, Nestlé has provided 600 women cooperatives with high-yield, disease-resistant cocoa seedlings and the technical assistance necessary to set up a nursery.
Thousands of women are reaping the rewards from Nestlé’s technical assistance, farming practices and high-yield, disease-resistant plantlets.