The State of Children’s Rights and Business 2019

The State of Children’s Rights and Business 2019 is a bold undertaking, showcasing the results of a review and analysis of just under 700 of the world’s leading companies – in nine sectors and along 20 children’s rights indicators.

While the resulting data can be statistically complex, the underlying ambition was relatively straightforward. We wanted to learn more about how the corporate sector is doing with regard to integrating children’s rights into both their operations and their relationships with the communities in which they operate.

The good news is that, in the past five years, we have seen progress. More companies are beginning to adopt a children’s rights perspective that goes beyond merely having a child labour policy or donating to children’s charities.

At the same time, we note an unfortunate discrepancy between having established children’s rights policies and reporting on the impacts of such policies. Additionally, children’s rights within Marketing and Product Safety remains an area where many companies do not recognize children as a special stakeholder group with distinct interests and needs.

Based on what we learned about the significant number of companies we interviewed for this study is that companies want to do good; the issue is not one of intent. However, many fail to understand the impact their business has on children and the wider community, with the possible exception of addressing and remediating high profile instances of child labour. There remains a gap between understanding children’s rights issues within a corporate context and undertaking the work necessary to address those issues with policies, programmes and reporting. Companies need to shift perspective to recognize that children’s rights policies encompass much more than compliance; they merit a real commitment, one that is implemented across operations and supply chains.

So which companies are leading, and which are lagging? Check out the corporate table table below and download the report for a more in-depth exploration of the results.