World Day Against Child Labour: Interview with FAO's Benjamin Davis and the EU's Cécile Billaux
Why is the agri-food sector so important in the fight against child labour, and what comparative advantage can FAO bring?
Benjamin Davis: According to the latest ILO-UNICEF global estimates, 70% of all child labour worldwide is found in agriculture. The answer lies in this figure. With such a sectoral incidence, it will not be possible to end child labour without a breakthrough in the agricultural sector. A wide range of key stakeholders recognized this situation during the 5th Global Conference on Child Labour in Durban earlier this year. In fact, the Conference’s outcome document, the Durban Call to Action, listed the elimination of child labour in agriculture as a top priority.
Agriculture is also the sector where more child labourers aged 5 to 11 are found (76.6%, an increase of 13.3% compared to 2016), underscoring the sector as the main entry point to child labour for the youngest group of children. In addition, the largest share of child labour occurs in family work, across all sectors and regions (averaging 72.1%, up by 8.7% since 2016), stressing the urgent need to support small-scale farmers.
FAO is well positioned to address child labour in agriculture, thanks to its mandate, technical expertise and longstanding country experience. In particular, FAO’s comparative advantage lies in its solid relationships with a wide range of agri-food actors, who play an important role to prevent and eliminate child labour in the different sub-sectors of agriculture (crop farming, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture), by addressing its root causes. These causes include, among others, poverty, food insecurity, lack of social protection, hazardous work, barriers to free and quality education and vulnerability to climate change and environmental degradation. By addressing these drivers as part of its mandate, FAO seeks to reduce the functional and economic dependency of farmers on their children’s engagement on the farm as child labourers. 15 years of experience in addressing the complexities of child labour in agriculture led up to publishing the FAO Framework on Ending Child Labour in Agriculture. This document, acknowledged as a key tool in the Durban Call to Action, aims to guide FAO personnel and agri-food systems actors to integrate child labour prevention in their work programmes by providing a wide range of entry points, knowledge and approaches to reduce child labour in agriculture.
An example of FAO's capacity to foster dialogue and catalyze global concerted action among agricultural actors has been the organization of the 2021 Global Solutions Forum: Acting Together to End Child Labour in Agriculture, in close collaboration with the ILO and in partnership with the International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture (IPCCLA) and the Alliance 8.7. The Forum gathered 1,130 registered participants from 120 countries. During this FAO-led event, more than 75 national, regional and global agricultural stakeholder representatives raised their voices and shared their commitment to step up concerted action to prevent and end child labour in agriculture.
What key policies and programmes is the EU introducing to accelerate efforts in addressing child labour in agri-food systems?
Cécile Billaux: As part of the European fundamental values, the European Union is committed to protecting the rights of every child to enjoy a peaceful and secure childhood and to have the chance to learn in school.
To respond to the multiple root causes of child labour, the EU has been funding interventions in various key areas that directly and indirectly contribute to reducing child labour. In the agriculture sector, poverty is pervasive and child labour continues to be highly prevalent, even at an early age. We work to increase families’ livelihoods and income, promote decent work policies to empower adult workers for a fair wage and improve their social protection coverage. For the next seven years, our Commissioner for International Partnerships, Ms Jutta Urpilainen, has committed to devote 10 percent of the EU development funds to education and training which of course will have a positive impact on our fight against child labour as the best proven measures to prevent it.
The CLEAR Cotton project is an example of our global programmes. In this project, the EU is working together with the ILO and FAO to eliminate child labour in all its forms in the cotton, textile and garment value chains in four targeted producing countries: Burkina Faso, Mali, Pakistan and Peru. The project combines an integrated area-based and value chain approach to cooperate with governments, social partners, local farmers and their communities, as well as international buyers. It seeks to strengthen national legislation, policies and programmes, and helps local governments, public services providers, and other relevant stakeholders to take effective action to stop child labour and forced labour in these sectors.
The project has so far removed 4 000 children from working in the cotton fields and reintegrated them into special schools; older children have received training for suitable jobs when reaching the minimum age for work, also in the cotton and ancillary sectors.
We will soon start another project in another agricultural value chain, most probably coffee. We will focus on pilot interventions in some key countries with high incidence of child labour in sectors with a significant volume of export to the EU.
How are the EU and FAO working together to address child labour in agriculture through the EU Sustainable Cocoa Initiative, and what value-added do you think this partnership can bring?
Cécile Billaux: The EU and FAO combined knowledge and expertise are bringing high added value in joint policy dialogues with relevant governments and key stakeholders.
The EU plays a key role as a major trading partner and donor in cocoa-producing countries, funding programmes in areas that contribute to reducing child labour, such as private sector development, decent work for adults and improved inclusive education and training for children and youth. FAO expertise is instrumental in identifying opportunities and key actors, in particular within the civil society.
The upcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence legislation will significantly provide a strong signal to big EU companies and brands. However, in order to avoid any adverse impacts, in particular for small companies and local producers, we intend to provide accompanying support to guide them in implementing due diligence, identifying and mitigating risks.
As acknowledged with the EU –funded CLEAR Cotton project, we have appreciated FAO interventions, for example in relation to preserving the occupational safety and health for workers and children, or the research and the implementation of the income generating activities for women, preventing child labour in the most vulnerable communities. We are learning from these goods results, which can be replicated in the cocoa and other agricultural value chains.
Finally, EU-FAO joint action to fight child labour in the cocoa and other agrifood and agro-ecology sectors contribute to an international recognition of child labour in agriculture as highly connected to global challenges, such as climate and energy crises, pandemic and conflicts.
What difference do you think the EU-FAO partnership can make in ending child labour in agriculture?
Benjamin Davis: Eliminating child labour is a shared priority for the EU and FAO. The EU zero-tolerance policy against child labour offers windows of opportunities for the implementation of the FAO Framework. The presence of high-level representatives of the European Commission, including Commissioner Urpilainen, during FAO’s 2021 Global Solutions Forum on Ending Child Labour in Agriculture demonstrated political commitment and partnership at the highest level.
I firmly believe the EU and FAO together can have a significant impact. Through a combination of child labour-sensitive legislative schemes, as well as financial and technical support, we can help developing countries to break the vicious cycle of child labour and rural poverty, turning it in a virtuous cycle of children’s education and decent rural employment.
While the EU representatives play an active role in FAO-led events and initiatives, FAO personnel also contribute to EU processes. For example, this has been the case for a public hearing convened by the European Parliament’s Committees on Development and on International Trade on 30 November 2021, to discuss ways of addressing child labour in developing countries in view of the upcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence legislation. On that occasion, FAO provided technical insights on how to avoid unintended negative impacts and maximize the positive impacts of the new regulatory scheme.
Besides policy work, these EU-FAO peer exchanges lay the foundation for the formulation and implementation of joint global projects and programmes on eliminating child labour in specific agriculture supply chains. In collaboration with other partners, and building up on the successful example of the EU/ILO/FAO CLEAR Cotton Project, the EU and FAO are currently implementing country-level activities related to the EU Sustainable Cocoa Initiative, while also preparing a new programme addressing child labour in the coffee value chains in selected countries.
What is to be prioritized to get as close as possible to SDG target 8.7, on ending all forms of child labour by 2025?
Benjamin Davis: We are 160 million children away from reaching the SDG target 8.7 – and 112 million of them are in agriculture. If we want to progress as much as possible towards the goal by 2025, we need to urgently make a breakthrough in agriculture. The Durban Call to Action gives us the highest possible endorsement to act quickly and widely. It is now up to all of us.
Reaching scale means mainstreaming child labour prevention and elimination in all policies and programmes impacting agri-food systems. It means making a breakthrough in data collection, by systematically integrating agriculture in national households and child labour surveys. It also means adopting a human rights and community-based approach, putting small-scale farmers at the core of our interventions. Finally, it means not only addressing global agri-food value chains, but also the regional and local ones, while implementing an area-based approach to avoid simply shifting child labour from one commodity to another, from one sector to another.
If we are to progress towards SDG target 8.7, we need to accelerate. The FAO Strategic Framework 2022 -2031 foresees accelerators like technology and innovation. We need to explore and use the full potential of digitalization to identify, monitor and support the most vulnerable families living in remote rural areas, which are the ones more prone to rely on child labour.
All considered, the global momentum and the technical capacities are there. To make an impact, we need the necessary resources. To this end, FAO recently launched its Child Labour in Agriculture Prevention Facility, a resource mobilization tool that we hope will help to draw the resources needed to end all forms of child labour in agriculture in the nearest future. Notably, the EU is already playing its part in supporting FAO's work and we are looking forward to upscale our collaboration to achieve our common goals.
What will the EU prioritize in the future to make a real breakthrough on child labour elimination in agriculture, and how will the EU-FAO partnership be important to that end?
Cécile Billaux: In line with our priorities to promote prosperity and decent jobs for all, we will focus our interventions on strategic sectors where child labour is massively present to produce goods to be exported to the EU or used for products sold on the EU markets. Through an area-based approach, we will also enlarge our scope in domestic value chains, aiming to generate fair incomes for local producers. Through a strategic and systemic approach, child labour can be stamped out and new decent jobs can be created for empowered rural youth.
This is not only an ethical responsibility, but also a first step to support companies and producers in our partner countries to implement the future legal requirements of the upcoming Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence directive.
The 49 measures of the Durban Call to Action recently adopted at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, reflect the multidimensional and complex nature of child labour in agriculture and fishery, and in many other sectors.
Since child labour in agriculture often occurs in family farming, I think that the FAO would play a significant role within our integrated approach, for example in empowering young farmers in agro-ecological production with skills suitable to improve sustainable production, adopt digital tools, and the use of renewable energy sources. For a more direct support in favour of children, we would also see FAO working with the EU in promoting and implementing school meals and school gardens with related services. A solid EU-FAO partnership should support processes that lead to fair incomes and living wages for small holder farmers and better cope with shocks, thanks to a diversified and sustainable production ensuring food security and nutrition. Effective support and dialogue for integrated agriculture, environmental and social policies, should sustainably prevent and remove children from labour. Another area of cooperation would be the organization of joint training and awareness raising activities on the harmful effects of child labour, targeting decision makers and actors on the ground, in order to promote abehavioural change.
A last word of positive change that you see for now and the future in terms of curbing the child labour challenge.
Cécile Billaux: Firstly, not all work performed by children in agriculture should be considered as child labour, and the ILO Conventions clearly make that distinction. I believe we have to properly communicate what is acceptable and what is not, and make it understood by all actors to counter current perceptions and social norms. The role of journalists in this respect is to be applauded: we have recently awarded the Lorenzo Natali Media Prize to courageous journalists who have reported on cases of labour exploitation and child trafficking.
Secondly, eliminating child labour is possible. A number of countries have tremendously decreased the amount of children employed in agriculture and this trend continues. Best practices should be shared (e.g. eliminating child labour in cotton fields in Uzbekistan), replicated and tailored to specific contexts. It is time now to act collectively. We cannot lose time as the 2025 target to end child labour is tomorrow!
Benjamin Davis: A positive change is that the level of articulated global commitment, momentum, existing capacities and known solutions to end child labour in agriculture has never been so strong. By placing the elimination of child labour in agriculture so high within the priorities of the Durban Call to Action, the 5th Global Conference has called all agricultural actors to urgently do more.
We are observing that more large-scale agriculture programmes include child labour prevention and reduction measures while major actors in agriculture such as FAO and the World Bank work closely together to strengthen child labour aspects in safeguards systems to ensure social sustainability. The EU has been among the pioneers in systematically considering child labour as a core aspect of the social dimensions of social sustainability, going hand in hand with the environmental and economic dimensions. This is laying the ground for an area-based approach to sustainable agriculture and food systems, which will allow making a real difference in the lives of agricultural communities, farmers, and their children.
FAO will continue collaborating with the EU in the joint fight against child labour in agriculture, building upon achievements and scaling up future interventions.