Remediation

In 2020 the ILO estimated that 160 million children are in child labour accounting for almost 1 in 10 of all children worldwide. Impactt developed the Operational Procedures for the Remediation of Child Labour in Industrial Contexts (CLOP) to help businesses identify and remediate instances of child labour in their supply chain.  The procedures were informed by our extensive work on child labour remediation and input from consultations with over 90 leading practitioners globally.

We consistently use this easy, step-by-step guidance to support and encourage businesses to remediate instances of child labour. We take a holistic approach to remediation, taking into consideration the individual child’s reasons for work, aspirations for the future, previous educational experiences and their parents’ view. This creates the best chance for ex-child workers to stay in education and find a suitable job after the programme. Impactt’s remediation programmes helps to:

• Keep underage children out of work.
• Compensate the missed opportunity of ex-child workers to access education and/or childhood from working as an underage worker.
• Improve the life chances of ex-child workers.
• Release the pressure on the family’s finances by providing a monthly stipend.

So far, 11 organisations have adopted the CLOP and are integrating the procedures into their own ethical programmes.

We have successfully remediated over 200 ex-child workers worldwide. Alongside this work, we strengthen company systems to prevent hiring underage workers in the future.

Gender equality continues to be a global ambition for businesses worldwide. Despite years of advocacy from research groups and civil society organisations that women are disadvantaged and vulnerable in global supply chains, many company efforts have merely focused on collecting gender-segregated data or implementing women’s empowerment programmes. Often times these initiatives do not necessarily address the issues at hand, and many fall short on understanding the root causes that led to the occurrence of gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in the first place.

We have been building our expertise in this area since 2019. We have conducted gender assessments and sexual harassment investigations in South and Southeast Asia, and East Africa, across different sectors such as garment and textile, food processing and beverages, and agriculture. Our gender assessments are worker-centric, data-driven, and knowledge-driven, and our ability to uncover the scale and extent of GBVH cases have provided our clients with deep insights to take targeted preventative and remedial actions. Our recommendations and solutions are aimed at addressing the cultural context and gender dynamics in the workplace, and we offer technical advice to strengthen capability and inclusivity in management structures. Clients we are working with have enhanced their gender and sexual harassment policies, increased their personnel in human resources to manage gender-sensitive complaints, and are equipped to follow up, investigate and revolve GBVH cases in the workplace.

One of the biggest challenges in creating respectful and safe workplaces is changing entrenched attitudes and perceptions. In Impactt’s experience, while a code of conduct sets the expectation, it must be coupled with addressing fundamental attitudes in the workplace.

We have in-depth experience doing this through RESTART, a training methodology based on social-psychology principles. RESTART tackles a range of difficult issues – including sexual and gender-based harassment, workplace communication and health and safety. From Dubai to Devon, and across Asia and Africa, the training has led to improved workplace relationships, laying the foundations for the co-creation of new workplace cultures.