MY Voice Initiative's Capacity-Building Efforts to Tackle Child Labour in Sabah's Palm Oil Sector

The MY Voice^1,2 project, led by Social Accountability International (SAI) with implementation support by The Centre and other partners, has recently launched its first capacity-building activities on child labour remediation. These are the beginning of numerous training sessions, workshops, and forums on forced labour and child labour that will be led by The Centre for Child Rights and Business (The Centre) under the MY Voice initiative.

This month, The Centre, with support from Proforest and Our Journey, organised a comprehensive one-day training session on Child Labour Prevention and Remediation³, we conducted this training  for 33 teachers from various alternative learning centres in Sabah. 

These 33 dedicated educators are responsible for teaching the most disadvantaged children, including those residing in plantations. Their daily responsibilities involve educating both undocumented and documented migrant children at alternative learning centres (ALCs) and community learning centres (CLCs) located within palm oil plantations. They will play a crucial role in the piloted MY Voice’s Child Labour Remediation (CLR) model in the Malaysian palm oil sector in Sabah.

At the conclusion of the training, all 33 teachers and HCASS coordinators have learned about the various opportunities and activities available for their participation during the pilot phase of the Remediation Hub. These programmes are fully funded and include:

• Training of Trainers on remediation.

• Case managers training on rapid assessment, remediation proposals, and more.

• Social dialogue sessions focused on raising awareness about access to remedies.

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¹ MY Voice is led by Social Accountability International (SAI), a global non-governmental organisation dedicated to advancing human rights at work. Funding for MY Voice is provided by the United States Department of Labor under cooperative agreement number IL-37321-21-75-K. 100% of the total costs of the project is financed with USG federal funds, for a total of $5,000,000 dollars. 

²  This material does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of Labor, nor does mention of trad names, commercial products, or organisations imply endorsement by the United States Government.

3 This material does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of  Labor,  nor  does  mention  of  trade  names,  commercial  products,  or  organizations  imply endorsement by the United States Government3 The Child Labour Prevention and Remediation training was organised with Humana Child Aid Society Sabah (HCASS), a Malaysian-based NGO that focuses on providing education at the kindergarten and primary levels. Their mission is to promote, provide, and operate learning centres in Sabah, especially for children living in plantations and undocumented children in urban areas. HCASS primarily serves children who lack access to education due to factors such as distance, affordability, and/or legal status.