The EU on its way to tackle Child Labour and Forced Labour

From 2008 to 2015, the European Union (EU) was involved in 359 actions to fight against child labour, allocated 651 million of euros in 98 different countries. The main focus was the prevention of forced labour notably through clusters addressing the legislative and regulatory framework, the enhancing of capacity of partner country governments, raising awareness among vulnerable groups and strengthening community prevention mechanisms and alternative training and social support structures.

In addressing forced labour, the EU got involved in 72 relevant actions. Most funds were managed by international organisations, such as the International Labour Organization (ILO). Unfortunately, ILO actions usually have a limited focus on national engagement in favour of international obligations, and general issues related to the legislative and regulatory framework. Multistakeholder dialogue is only weakly developed.

Additionally, 23% of funds were handled by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). CSO projects mostly take a community-based or supply chain approach. CSO actions are formally designed as complementary to the other approaches, but often do not address these because of low budgets and short time frame.

In general, the EU’s specific policy commitments and operational strategies related to child labour and forced labour was found not to be the decisive factors shaping the portfolio of actions relevant to these themes. EU operational support is only weakly related to the severity of child labour. Nevertheless, the greatest progress in recent years has been achieved in countries with the highest proportion of children working.

Regarding the results of the study, recommendations are to capitalise on the significant EU support to prevention of child labour, but also to review the imbalance of low funding for multiple projects addressing child sexual exploitation. Support to efforts to reduce state forced labour should be expanded as well as the support to ILO should be rationalized. The efforts should also consider increasing quality of analysis, strengthen project logic and M&E. Mainstreaming child labour and forced labour across EU policy and operational engagements need sustained efforts as well.

Finally, three options for future action were outlined: Capacity development for organisations serving victims and the vulnerable, Comprehensive Integrated, Value Chain Approach. The first option would be acting more locally, the second would focus more on policy building and legal framework, and the third would aim at including all stakeholders in the value chains, in particular small-scale farmers. Although these three possibilities have different means of actions, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

For the work that the Fair Trade movement is doing on child labour, have a look at the dedicated site of Fairtrade International and WFTO.