PA08: No Child Labour
Child labour occurs when work:
- is done by a person who is younger than 15 years (or 14 years old)
- is mentally, physically, socially and/or morally dangerous
- is harmful to children
- interferes with children regular schooling: deprives them of the opportunity to attend school, obliges them to leaves school prematurely, combining school attendance with excessive long and heavy work
- cannot be considered light work
- helping parents, assisting family business, earning pocket money
light work is acceptable as long as: at least 13 years old (at least 12 years old where minimum wage is 14), not prejudice school, not continuous basis, supervised by parents
PA08: No Child Labour
light work is acceptable as long as: at least 13 years old (at least 12 years old where minimum wage is 14), not prejudice school, not continuous basis, supervised by parents
A higher minimum age of 18 years is set for hazardous work: works ... likely to jeopardise peoples' health, safety and/or morals cannot be carried out by workers younger than 18 years old.
IMPORTANT: In almost all cases, work in factories is not acceptable for children below the age of 16 as it is considered a dangerous work environment.
PA08: No Child Labour
8.1 CRUCIAL QUESTION: The Auditee does not engage in illegal Child Labour directly or indirectly
... to ensure that children younger than 15 years old (or younger than 14 years old) are not engaged directly or indirectly ...
... must take the necessary actions to: understand what child labour is and what is not, and legal context, identify whether child labour is likely to occur ..., ensure there is a remediation process in place
... shall avoid engaging child labour indirectly ...
PA08: No Child Labour
8.2 The Auditee establishes robust Age-verification Mechanisms as Part of the Recruitment Process, which may not be in any way degrading or disrespectful to the Worker
... to ensure that its recruitment process can identify any minor before he or she is recruited. A robust age-verification mechanism includes:
- Training of the person or people in charge of ...
- Regular cross-verification of workers' ages with other stakeholders (e.g., recruitment agencies and previous employers)
PA08: No Child Labour
8.3 The Auditee has adequate Policies and Procedures in writing, towards protecting Children from any kind of Exploitation
The business partners shall be kept up-to-date and include: An overview of • Particularly hazardous working conditions • illegal activities in the region, family poverty • child protection projects run in the area by government, NGOs, or others • trade union(s) that could offer support • educational or vocational training facilities nearby or in the region • education and social welfare authorities
An assessment of the measure to:
control, reduce, necessary steps
PA08: No Child Labour
8.4 The Auditee has adequate and remedial Policies and Procedures to provide for further Protection in case Children are found to be working
Remediation procedure must include: ways to help children return to society, relevant stakeholders who could help children and families, allocated budget
in some cases, the best approach: progressive removal of children from work, a time schedule to monitor how children return to society
... might be more appropriate than immediately removing the child without any supervision.
PA08: No Child Labour
Required Documents
- Personal data files for all workers
- Age-verification procedure
- Documentary evidence of training given to workers, management and human resources (e.g., list of attendees with signatures)
- Procedure to avoid exploitation of children
- Child labour remediation procedure
- Worker contracts or agreements, including those with recruitment agencies
