Child Labour Platform (CLP)- India

Background and Rationale

The Child Labour Platform (CLP) programme aims to increase awareness, institutional capacity building and systemic responses to address the root causes of child labour in coffee, spices, cotton and sugarcane within the agriculture sector of India. It contributes to improve access to public services and institutions for migrant workers to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities that contribute to child labour. It also provides an effective mechanism for private sector engagement on the systemic causes of child labour and create new opportunities for business to advance responsible business conduct in the country. The fact that the CLP is a global platform of the ILO, which leverages experiences with businesses and Governments in other counties in commodities of critical importance for India's economy.

In recent years there has been a significant increase in attention on conditions of work within global supply chains. This has led to a proliferation of mandatory and voluntary transparency and due diligence international legislations, which directly refer to the Child Labour and other ILO’s core labor standards. Child labor has been prioritized by many companies and importing countries across their due diligence requirements for ensuring social sustainability in supply chains.

CLP thus strengthens the capacity of supply chain actors to develop and adopt fair recruitment and employment practices including fair wages and enhance business due diligence systems in the identified areas to address the root causes of child labour.

This initiative supports India’s commitment to the implementation of national law and policy on child labour as well as responsible business conduct, as enshrined in its National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct, aligned with international frameworks such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and ILO Conventions & MNE Declaration.

The CLP India is supported by partners and CLP member companies including the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, The Coca-Cola Company, McCormick Global Ingredients Ltd and Unilever, reaffirming the importance of multi-stakeholder partnerships in driving systemic change.

The programme is currently under implementation in Telangana and Karnataka.

Project Objectives
The key objectives of the programme follow as:

• Increased awareness, understanding and capacity building on the elimination of child labour including prevention of children at risk, in the agriculture supply chains.
• Prioritise improved access of migrant workers to public services and institutions to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities contributing to child labour.
• Strengthened capacity of all relevant supply chain actors to develop and adopt fair recruitment and employment practices including fair wage to address the root causes of child labour.
• Support Due Diligence System for implementation or improvement in the due diligence process of businesses.