Consumer Pledge

1 in 10 children worldwide are working in child labour.

As a consumer, I don’t have enough information on whether my beauty and cosmetics may be connected to the exploitation of children. This is especially concerning considering a recent World Vision report that highlighted how the 600-billion-dollar cosmetics industry uses many ingredients at high risk of child labour, including cocoa, shea, vanilla, palm oil, copper and mica.

Now is the time for real action. I promise to ask the companies I buy from what they are doing to keep their supply chains free of child labour and commit to lobbying my politicians to enact and strengthen as necessary the supply chain legislation in my country.

No child should be missing out on their education – or worse, losing a life – to produce ingredients for beauty products, and I want to use my voice and my wallet to make this stop.

Tweet to company

@[company] The global cosmetics market has projected growth of $115.6 billion, but millions of children are losing out on childhood to work in dangerous conditions, farming and mining essential ingredients for cosmetics. What are you doing to address this? #shadybeauty

Email or tweet your Elected Official

webpage action emails the participant’s elected officials (targets them based on the postal code the participant provides) with the following message:

Dear [elected official] [elected official’s name goes here],

As one of your constituents, I was disturbed to learn that after two decades of incremental progress, we are now seeing a disturbing increase in the number of girls and boys in child labour globally. Over 79 million children are working in dirty, dangerous, and degrading jobs that compromise their health, safety, and education, and more than a quarter of this child labour is directly related to global exports.

This is unacceptable in 2023 and is happening despite increasing transparency and supply chain legislation in countries such as the UK, Netherlands, Germany and Canada. This legislation is not only needed out of a sense of duty to children around the world but is also quickly becoming imperative to our competitiveness and access to international markets

[If your country doesn’t have Supply chain legislation] We call on you and all parliamentarians to do everything in your power to urgently pass an act requiring companies to disclose what they are doing to fight against forced and child labour in their supply chains. This will be the first strategic step to address human rights abuses. We have a tremendous opportunity to put businesses in our country on a real, pragmatic path to implement a do-no-harm approach. Girls and boys are at risk of harm today, and this legislation is a critical tool we can use to fight the scourge of child labour.

[If your country does have supply chain legislation] We call on you and all parliamentarians to do everything in your power to strengthen our existing transparency and supply chain legislation. Right now, companies are publishing processes, but audits lack teeth and the number of children in child labour is still growing. We need stronger legislation that makes companies responsible for their sourcing, all the way down to the farm gate or mine. We have a tremendous opportunity to put businesses in our country on a real, pragmatic path to implement a do-no-harm approach. Girls and boys are at risk of harm today, and legislation is a critical tool we can use to fight the scourge of child labour.

Supply chain legislation is one tool at our disposal to drastically improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable children and reduce their exploitation. When implemented alongside investments to lift children out of global hunger and poverty, this type of law can drive transformative change for boys and girls around the world. 

Thank you.

[NAME]

Send the participant’s elected officials a tweet

@[elected official handle] We call on you and @[head of state] to do everything in your power to pass/strengthen supply chain legislation as a first step to ending child labour in supply chains. #childlabour