Analysis of Child Labour and Business Principles in Cotton and Garment Sector in Türkiye
The main purpose of this project, carried out in cooperation with UNICEF Türkiye, was to analyze the awareness, practices and measures taken regarding child labour in the cotton and ready-to-wear supply chains in Türkiye, and to offer short – medium – long-term suggestions within the framework of the bottlenecks and challenges encountered. In this context, the cotton and ready-to-wear supply chains were taken into consideration in a consolidated manner, and interviews were held with actors at different levels of the supply chains in various provinces of Türkiye.
Project
Child Labour In Garment Sector in Türkiye: An Analysis on Child Labour and Human Rights Due Diligence Practices
Project Partner
UNICEF Türkiye
Status
Completed
The conclusion and fundamental recommendations were as follows:
Based on the research and analysis made, it is determined that child labour remains to be a problem in ready-to-wear manufacturing supply chain consolidated with cotton in Türkiye. This is due to several different reasons varying from socio-economic factors to insufficient coverage in laws and deficient practices. Perhaps more importantly, the current situation points out to an urgent need to adopt a novel approach on human rights related impacts of business operations, which include child labour. In fact, it can be observed that state-based actions remain limited to provide a sustainable solution on the problem of child labour, along with other human rights violations, which requires consolidated action by the state, corporate actors and civil society. To this end, it is firstly recommended that the state takes actions to effectively regulate all related aspects of child labour, including audits and inspections. Secondly, corporate actors should adopt a novel way to do business by ensuring a multi-stakeholder approach, whereby they would be engaged in practices such as HRDD to detect human rights risks and violations throughout their group companies, along with their global supply chains, which would eventually serve to take precautions and remedial actions to prevent, mitigate or remedy the mentioned risks and violations. Thirdly, civil society also has a crucial role in providing sustainable solutions to business related human rights violations, including child labour, as civil society actors can effectively monitor and put pressure on the others to adopt the required measures and remedies, eventually to achieve sustainable compliance.
