This July 21 at 9:30 am (GMT-5) will be broadcast in Spanish and English through www.oitalc.com , the V International Virtual Seminar "Prosperity without sacrifices: building supply chains free of child labor", organized by the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Labor Organization as a closing to the campaign for the World Day Against Child Labor 2016.

This event was attended by leading international experts. From Switzerland, Merten Sievers, Specialist in the Development of Value Chains and Entrepreneurship Training for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) of the ILO and, from Colombia, Diana Chávez, Director of the Regional Center for Latin America and the Caribbean in support of the Global Compact of the United Nations. Likewise, two good corporate practices in the prevention and eradication of child labor in supply chains were unveiled. The first experience was from Brazil with Coca-Cola and the second from Mexico with the sugar factory Ingenio Lázaro Cárdenas.

To date, there are 12.5 million children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean who work and the truth is that as multiple actors intervene in the value chain and the greater the distances between them, there is the possibility that in some link a boy or girl below the allowed age is working in the product or service for which he negotiates as an entrepreneur or consumes as a citizen.

What are the challenges in tackling child labor in supply chains?

According to Merten Sievers, the complex working mechanics of the chain, which aims to achieve greater productivity and competitiveness for the business, leads to lower costs and use cheaper labor such as child labor and despite the fact that the company does not intend to having children working, this becomes a difficult reality for them to control. As a result, Sievers says, child labor and some of its worst forms can become invisible in supply chains. Therefore, among the main challenges is the identification and analysis of the contact points of the different markets and combating poverty through the development of instruments of economic inclusion for families.

What is the role of the company to prevent and eradicate child labor in its supply chains?

For Diana Chávez, companies must ensure that the issue of child labor is one of the priorities in the strategy. Small, medium and large companies that address this issue will generate a positive impact on the economic growth of the region and for its operations. Along these lines, companies must identify their role as an economic actor and how they can enhance the actions of the State on this issue. Likewise, Chávez mentions, it is key to ensure from the operation and marketing strategy the defense of the rights of children and adolescents, to plan the way in which families can be given access to a stable and sustainable economic income and evaluate how to include these programs in the value chain. For all this, it will be necessary to ensure a budget item.

The innovative regional experiences

Luiz Andre Soares, Senior Manager of Sustainability and Shared Value of Coca-Cola Brazil, presented the experience “Açaí without child labor”, which since 2013 has been working with families that produce this exotic fruit from the Brazilian Amazon, obtaining to date important results in improved production, employability of young people, community organization and, of course, the non-use of children in the extraction and first processing of this fruit.

On the other hand, from Mexico, Mario René Hernández, Manager of Quality Management at Ingenio Lázaro Cárdenas presented the experience “Zero tolerance to child labor, Bonsucro certification”. Ingenio Lázaro Cárdenas is the first Mexican sugar mill to achieve the Bonsucro certification [1] and has generated a monitoring procedure to guarantee that there are no working children and adolescents in the sugarcane supplying fields.

To learn more about supply chains and their operation, the challenges that companies face in this new context of global production, and learn more about the experiences of Brazil and Mexico, we await you this Thursday, July 21.

The schedules according to country can be found by clicking here . As of this day, the presentations and the files of the regional business experiences related to the subject of child labor and supply chains will be available on this Web Platform.

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[1] The Bonsucro certification certifies that the sugarcane production and the supply chain of the company have a sustainable future approach through environmentally and socially responsible initiatives.