“Work: No Child’s Business” Programme Aims to Eradicate Child labour in Vietnam’s Footwear & Apparel Sectors

A multi-country child labour eradication programme called “Work: No Child’s Business” has been jointly developed by an alliance consisting of Save the Children the Netherlands, UNICEF Netherlands and Stop Child Labour Coalition and is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The programme, which aims to make a strong and lasting contribution to the elimination of child labour at the community, government and private sector level, is being rolled out in six countries where child labour is most prevalent: Côte d’Ivoire, India, Jordan, Mali, Uganda and Vietnam.

The Centre is the implementation partner in Vietnam to work with the private sector in the garment, textile and footwear industry, and is focusing on children subject to or at risk of child labour, especially migrant children at 6 targeted districts in Ho Chi Minh City (including Cu Chi, Go Vap, Binh Tan, Nha Be and District 7 and District 10), where there is a high rate of out-migration and left-behind children. CCR CSR has reached out to different stakeholders including local authorities, CSOs, brands and factories for factory enrolments. Baseline assessments have been conducted at three suppliers, and more are being planned.

The programme tackles business-driven root causes of child labour through multi-stakeholder partnerships that seek to improve access to quality education, skills training, and protection and support for girls and boys impacted by economic/internal migration either as left-behind children or as children living in poor migrant urban households. Factories that are enrolled into the programme undergo a baseline assessment that will help them develop an implementation plan to prioritise the four programme components offered by the programme.

• Child Labour Prevention and Remediation (CLPR) for tier one and subcontractors, sub- suppliers and other business partners.

• Working Parent Training (WPT) to raise parents’ awareness of the risks of child labour

• Child Friendly Space (CFS) to support children of workers with childcare & homework

• In-factory Youth Development (YD) to give young people access to better jobs and skills