Further Guidance

Examples of further guidance on child labour include:

• United Nations Global Compact, The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact: The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact provide universal guidance for sustainable business in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. Principle 5 calls on businesses to uphold the elimination of child labour.
• United Nations Global Compact, Business: It’s Time to Act: Decent Work, Modern Slavery & Child Labour: This brief guide offers an overview of the steps businesses can take to help eliminate child labour while highlighting key resources, initiatives and engagement opportunities to support business action.
• ILO, COVID-19 and Child Labour: A Time of Crisis, a Time to Act: This report outlines the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on child labour trends.
• ILO, Understanding the Health Impact of Children’s Work: This study brings together information from a wide variety of nationally representative household surveys in an attempt to shed additional light on the health effects of children’s work within and across less-industrialized countries and on which types of children’s work pose the greatest risk of ill-health.
• ILO, Towards the Urgent Elimination of Hazardous Child Labour: This report brings together and assesses new research on hazardous child labour and provides recommendations on prevention and protection.
• ILO, Improving the Safety and Health of Young Workers: This report provides a definition of young workers and outlines factors threatening their safety and health.
• ILO, OECD, IOM and UNICEF, Multi-Stakeholder Initiative on Ending Child Labour, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking in Global Supply Chains: This resource provides recommendations on responsible business conduct on labour and human rights, including developing due diligence on child labour.
• UNICEF, UN Global Compact and Save the Children, Children’s Rights and Business Principles: The Principles (particularly 2, 3 and 4) guide companies on actions they can take to prevent child labour.
• UNICEF and UN Global Compact, Children in Humanitarian Crises: What Business Can Do: A report on how business can help uphold children’s rights — including freedom from child labour — and support and promote their well-being during humanitarian crises.
• UNICEF, Tool for Investors on Integrating Children’s Rights into ESG Assessment: This tool has been designed to guide investors on integrating children’s rights into the evaluation of ESG opportunities and performance of investee companies.
• Alliance 8.7, Delta 8.7 Knowledge Platform: A global knowledge platform providing resources on eradicating forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour.
• Stop Child Labour, Handbook: 5×5 Stepping Stones for Creating Child Labour Free Zones: The stepping stones presented in this handbook are based on the stories and strategies of NGOs, unions and child labour free zone members worldwide. The handbook shows that — in spite of poverty — it is possible to get children out of work and into school.