ILO director-general, Guy Ryder, has called for a whole-of-supply-chain approach to address child labour in global supply chains during his opening statement to a recent conference on child labour in Netherlands.
He said that efforts against child labour in global supply chains would be inadequate if they do not extend beyond immediate suppliers and include those involved in the extraction and production of raw materials.
He also urged governments to address the root causes of child labour in global supply chains, such as poverty, informality and insufficient access to education.
“Today, 152 million children are still in child labour. The need to accelerate progress is obvious,” said Ryder. “The UN resolution declaring 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour is a tremendous opportunity to keep the momentum, and to accelerate action towards the achievement of zero child labour, in all its forms, by 2025.”
Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, announced that the Netherlands would become a pathfinder country of Alliance 8.7 – the first EU member state to do do.
The Alliance 8.7 partnership brings together 225 partner organisations committed to collaborate to achieve Target 8.7 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which calls on governments around the world to end child labour by 2025 and to put in place effective measures to end forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking by 2030.
Pathfinder countries commit to go further and faster to achieve Target 8.7. They implement new actions, try new approaches and share their knowledge.