The people who pluck your daily cup of tea are mostly mothers with kids. Tea companies that help these women and children improve their own performance as well.
Socially responsive businesses today want not only to stamp out child labor but also to ensure good conditions for families in every dimension. The Centre for Child Rights and Business helps companies in agriculture and manufacturing around the world develop family-friendly supply chains. When businesses help children, they also improve performance, The Centre says.
Based in Hong Kong, The Centre operates with 46 staff spread across 15 countries. During 2022, it worked with over 300 companies. In the coffee sector, the organization has implemented programs for businesses in Brazil, Uganda, and Vietnam.
In the tea sector, The Centre has been actively involved in Sri Lanka. During the country’s economic crisis in 2022, The Centre introduced the Mother and Child Friendly Seal for Responsible Business, a certification initiative. So far, eight companies have enrolled in this program, working alongside The Centre to enhance their investments in the workforce and their families.
Although underage labor is perceived as a developing world issue, there are problems in some rich countries. The United States, for example, legislated federal protections in 1938, but infractions have been rising in recent years. Some states have weakened rules at the local level. More work is needed to guarantee that businesses everywhere fully respect the rights of mothers and children.
STiR Managing editor Brian Mertens interviewed The Centre’s CEO, Ines Kaempfer, to learn more.
The Centre is a “social enterprise.” How is that different from a United Nations affiliate like UNICEF or a charity?
We are owned by Save the Children in Sweden, which is a member of Save the Children, the international philanthropic organization. However, we operate as a social enterprise, which is registered as a commercial company. Our income primarily comes directly from businesses we work with, mostly via a fee-for-service model, not donations. We provide solution-oriented services that help companies and at the same time have a positive impact on children’s rights.
How much is child labor a problem in agriculture and industry today?
We cover all kinds of conditions affecting kids and families, but child labor is a persistent challenge in supply chains, so we do work to prevent or remediate it.
A company might discover a child labor issue through an audit or vendor visit, then ask for our help. During the past three years, we have received 800 notifications regarding instances of child labor in agriculture and manufacturing. In these cases, we help the company to solve the problem from both a child rights perspective, ensuring adequate support for the children, and from a business perspective, by offering support to the factory.
What about tea in particular? What are the problems impacting women and children in this sector?
It’s not that tea is worse than other farm sectors. A lot of the child rights challenges that impact mothers and children are universal throughout agriculture. But we do see that in Sri Lanka, workers in the tea fields often need greater access to resources and services like good health care, sanitation, transport, early childhood schooling, quality education.
Yet, Sri Lanka has made some great progress. There are plantation owners, brands, and traders that want to take responsibility for helping mothers and children. They want to add value to the “Ceylon tea” brand by making social investments in producer communities. We hope buyers will support their efforts.
Do you approach companies, or do they call you?
It’s both. We do go out and tell our stories to businesses and encourage them to see how they have an opportunity to become a sustainable force for good. But companies sometimes face immediate problems and come to us. If you’re a tea brand, and you become aware that your producers are a vulnerable group, then it can be a real challenge. There is a labor shortage. It is not easy to make these jobs attractive because they’re often linked to low income and difficult conditions. So, companies reach out to us to see how they can better support the producers. Or call us if they discover child labor.
How do you set up a program for a company?
In the Mother and Child Friendly Seal for Responsible Business initiative, we first help the enrolled companies get a good sense of what is going on in their producing communities, whether plantations or exporters. It starts with doing a capacity self-assessment — evaluating the company’s current standing in areas critical to having family-friendly conditions. You might have young mothers that need flexible working hours or fathers who need parental leave for childcare responsibilities. Or you might have a community with many children aged 15 or 16 that are out of school and lacking opportunities.
We then put together a roadmap and action plan with the companies to pragmatically tackle those needs. It’s not so much about “standards” and benchmarks, but about respecting certain principles, making progress, and having a real impact.
How do you define and measure impact?
We might see that mothers all say that they’re taking their children to work with them. Or that there is a big school dropout rate among children who, at age 15 or 16, go and engage in hazardous work, often outside of the tea plantations. These are facts that we can identify and measure. We do a count before and after to see if things improve. It is very objective. But it must be tailor-made, because not every plantation can work on everything all at once. And different plantations are at different stages of progress. We also measure success in a qualitative way, by getting feedback from rights holders — the women and children.
What do the companies then spend on?
In the Seal Initiative’s first year, one of the tea brands invested in paying child subsidies to workers to ensure that, despite the financial crisis, they would be able to keep their children well-nourished and in school. This had great results! Other companies invest in youth development. Some invest in support for women in terms of hygiene. A company can spend just $15,000 and have a great impact. Others invest $100,000 and have an even greater impact.
Downstream buyers should support this initiative. We’re all in this together. When you buy tea or coffee, you depend on the well-being of the producers, and you want to buy with a clean conscience. Let’s all contribute and not only push responsibility toward the upstream producers.
The tea industry's margins are under pressure today. Can companies afford these social investments?
We often see that these programs have a positive impact on the business side. For example, if your investments lead to better worker-management relationships. If they lead to increased retention of workers. In manufacturing, we have seen that within just one year, most companies get their investment back or even multiply their investment, simply because they improve retention of workers. They save on recruitment and training. It increases efficiency and quality. All our projects aim to find solutions that are sustainable from a business perspective, because it’s only then that companies will continue, especially when business gets tough.
You are working with eight companies in Sri Lanka, mostly plantations. What about small growers?
We want to build on our experience in the plantations and reach out to the smallholders. A plantation is easier, because you have a level of organization that is not necessarily there among the smallholders. We know however that workers at smallholder farms are a particular vulnerable group, and their children are at higher risk. So next we will include the smallholders.
What are the results you’re seeing?
Although the initiative is still in its early stages, we’re already witnessing some encouraging outcomes. There’s been increased engagement in youth development and practical support for women. They set up focus groups where they can gather and discuss challenges within their communities. There has also been positive dialogue and concrete action taken to recognize tea picking as skilled labor, highlighting the value and expertise involved in this field.
The tea sector in Sri Lanka holds immense potential. On the one hand, it is crucial for the industry to adopt sound environmental conservation practices throughout all stages of tea production to ensure sustainability and the continued production of high-quality tea. On the other hand, equal emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring that workers receive a fair living wage and other supportive conditions.
The Mother and Child Friendly Seal for Responsible Business Initiative aims to do exactly that – facilitate the tea sector’s transformation into a family-friendly industry in Sri Lanka.
Ines Kaempfer, CEO, Centre for Child Rights and Business