2018 United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights

Interpretation is provided into Spanish

Organized by UNICEF

Short description and session objectives:
This session will explore different methods of conducting human rights due diligence with consideration of children’s rights and voice, and the role of different stakeholders in making this happen including investors, governments, companies and UN agencies. The session will consider both challenges and solutions to the integration of child rights into business processes by engaging the audience in an interactive and participatory manner.  

Format:
Interactive discussion between main panel speakers and different interventions from the floor representing different perspectives and voices.


Background to the discussion:
The focus of the session is to emphasize the need for companies to take specific measures to understand and address their potential impacts on groups and communities that may be at heightened risk of vulnerability or marginalization. Children are often the most vulnerable population, requiring specific attention to guarantee respect for their human rights. It is possible that one business activity might not impact the rights of adults, but the same activity could adversely impact the rights of a child. Despite this, children have not been adequately considered by business. Companies’ consideration of their impact on child rights is often relegated to the issue of child labour or community investment, yet the impacts of business on children extend to such aspects as product design and advertising, the behaviour of staff towards children, and children’s rights in the supply chain, and the ways that companies operate in the wider community. Moreover, children are usually less well placed to advocate for their own interests and may be silenced within their households or communities. Unless companies make dedicated efforts to understand the risks they pose to child rights, and engage child rights advocates – children may be at risk of exclusion from companies’ human rights due diligence and stakeholder engagement processes.

Organized by the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation and Participant Media

Short description of the session:
Join us for a special screening of THE PRICE OF FREE, followed by a conversation with Nobel Peace Laureate, Kailash Satyarthi (other panelists TBD).
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, THE PRICE OF FREE is a suspenseful yet intimate look at one man’s groundbreaking struggle to liberate every child possible from slavery. From director Derek Doneen and Oscar winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth,” “He Named Me Malala”), the film follows Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi and his team of leaders around the world through gripping secret raids and quests for missing children in the hopes of ending the cycle of poverty that forces them and their families into dreadful circumstances. Refusing to be daunted by the impossible, they have succeeded in rescuing over 87,000 children and created a global movement which has resulted in legislation which helps protect young children. The film was co-produced by Concordia Studio and Participant Media, and will be released by YouTube Originals.

Session objectives:

• Introduce / re-introduce Kailash Satyarthi and his movement to the audience
• Illuminate the persistence of child labor, hidden in supply chains
• Discuss the role of business in child labor and slavery in supply chains
• Describe the film’s social impact campaign and how companies in the room can screen this film for their employees, leaders and partners.

Key discussion questions:

• What can the private sector do to help solve this problem?

Background to the discussion:
The film will be launched globally on November 27th by YouTube Originals.
The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation and Participant Media (in partnership with YouTube and Concordia Studio) will empower students, policymakers, and business leaders to take action toward a future that is child-labor free. The campaign will provide audiences across the U.S. and around the world with an opportunity to understand and reflect on how many of the products we use in our daily lives — from our coffee, to our clothes, to our mobile devices — could include the work of children. The campaign will provide pathways for audiences to invest, advocate and lead change.
Recognizing the key role that business plays in eliminating forced and child labor, Participant Media is offering the film to companies with global supply chains, so that they might screen for their employees, leadership, customers or shareholders. Companies may choose a date between October 2018 and April 2019 to screen all or a portion of the film and use the event as an opportunity to spark a conversation about improving supply chain practices. Participant Media will provide tools for hosting a successful screening event.

Interpretation is provided in English and Spanish

Brief description of the presentation:
Business impacts children everywhere. Children interact daily with the private sector – as family members of workers, employees, consumers, and community members affected by operations and supply chains. The Children’s Rights and Business Atlas is an online tool that uses a wide range of data analysis and manipulation to help transform this interaction and help businesses, investors and industry organizations understand how their actions impact children’s rights globally.

Presentation objectives: 
To discuss how the Children’s Rights and Business Atlas provides a quantitative assessment of children’s rights across 195 countries and territories to offer a comprehensive understanding of how actions impact children’s rights, and the degree to which children’s rights are respected, across the globe in the Workplace, at the Marketplace, and within the Community and Environment. The Atlas harnesses the power of data to bring pragmatic and user-friendly insight into the complex narrative of children’s’ rights, helping provide risk and impact assessment. The Atlas is designed to help business, government and industry stakeholders better understand their impact on children through the use of publicly available country data, industry analysis and practical guidance.

Interpretation is provided in English and French.

Session organized by the  Alliance 8.7 Secretariat and its Action Group on Supply Chains.

Topic and focus of the session:
The challenge of ending child labour and forced labour remains formidable with 152 million children around the world in child labour and 25 million people in forced labour. A significant number of victims are working in supply chains.

As the leading global partnership to end child labour and forced labour, Alliance 8.7 will use its unique convening power to bring to the Forum testimonies from three countries and the OSCE. These will show how governments have joined forces with other partners (business membership and employers’ organizations, trade unions, companies, civil society organizations, UN organizations and entities) to strengthen due diligence and the coordination of their efforts.

Session objectives:

1. Share good experiences of Governments and businesses collaboration on the implementation of measures aimed at incentivizing or enabling businesses to engage in due diligence on child labour and forced labour in supply chains;
2. Exchange insights on persisting challenges to be addressed, including on closing knowledge gaps and measuring impact of efforts;
3. Provide examples on how Alliance 8.7 can accelerate the results of their efforts under the 2030 Agenda. 

Format of the session:
Introductory statements followed by interactive dialogue with the audience

Interpretation is provided in English and Spanish

Brief description of the presentation:
The session will showcase an effective multi-stakeholder model (i.e. the “La Máquina Model”), working against child labour and offer both a government and a rights-holder perspective. The model, which has been developed and run in close collaboration with the Government of Guatemala, the ECLT Foundation, NGO partner DNI Costa Rica, local communities and private sector partners, not only focuses on schools and job skills but also provides child labour training for key local actors, like community leaders, teachers and technicians from companies that work with farmers, for a sustainable way to address child labour gaps in agricultural supply chains and promote decent youth employment.

Presentation objectives:
Ms. Rodriguez will speak briefly on the challenges she faces accessing education in her rural community, the importance of the model for her and her fellow participants.
Ms. Ochoa will give a short overview of the work, successes and challenges of the Ministry of Labour in the Eradication of Child Labour, specifically, the advances made as a country, including the “La Maquina Model” and the importance of building a replicable model in two departments of Guatemala. The replica aims to continue promoting education, ignite economic development and reduce migration in communities living in extreme poverty in Guatemala.

Organized by the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation and Participant Media

Short description of the session:
Join us for a special screening of THE PRICE OF FREE.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, THE PRICE OF FREE is a suspenseful yet intimate look at one man’s groundbreaking struggle to liberate every child possible from slavery. From director Derek Doneen and Oscar winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth,” “He Named Me Malala”), the film follows Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi and his team of leaders around the world through gripping secret raids and quests for missing children in the hopes of ending the cycle of poverty that forces them and their families into dreadful circumstances. Refusing to be daunted by the impossible, they have succeeded in rescuing over 87,000 children and created a global movement which has resulted in legislation which helps protect young children. The film was co-produced by Concordia Studio and Participant Media, and will be released by YouTube Originals.

Session objectives:

• Illuminate the persistence of child labor, hidden in supply chains
• Discuss the role of business in child labor and slavery in supply chains
• Describe the film’s social impact campaign and how companies in the room can screen this film for their employees, leaders and partners.

Key discussion questions:

• What can the private sector do to help solve this problem?

Background to the discussion:
The film will be launched globally on November 27th by YouTube Originals.
The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation and Participant Media (in partnership with YouTube and Concordia Studio) will empower students, policymakers, and business leaders to take action toward a future that is child-labor free. The campaign will provide audiences across the U.S. and around the world with an opportunity to understand and reflect on how many of the products we use in our daily lives — from our coffee, to our clothes, to our mobile devices — could include the work of children. The campaign will provide pathways for audiences to invest, advocate and lead change.
Recognizing the key role that business plays in eliminating forced and child labor, Participant Media is offering the film to companies with global supply chains, so that they might screen for their employees, leadership, customers or shareholders. Companies may choose a date between October 2018 and April 2019 to screen all or a portion of the film and use the event as an opportunity to spark a conversation about improving supply chain practices. Participant Media will provide tools for hosting a successful screening event.