“No child should work. Every child has a right to education, to play and to enjoy his or her childhood. A world without child labour is possible if everyone abides by these principles. By working together, seemingly insurmountable challenges such as poverty and inadequate or inaccessible education can be overcome.”

Stop Child Labour (SCL) is an international campaign which aims to eliminate child labour and ensure formal, full-time and quality education for all children.

SCL India platform is a part of the global campaign for strengthening and expanding the Child Labour Free Zones (CLFZ) with the active participation of companies and/or CSR initiatives.

With a vision to attempt and address this problem, a number of organizations like the Algemene Onderwijs bond (AOb), Mondiaal FNV, Hivos, the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), Kerk in Actie & ICCO Cooperation and Stichting Kinder postzegels Nederland came together in coalition to start an initiative called ‘Stop Child Labour – School is the best place to work’ which advocates for combatting all forms of child labour, providing quality formal education for all children and a decent income for adults across the globe.

The Stop Child Labour coalition aims to achieve this vision in two interlinked ways:

1) Working towards good quality formal education for all girls and boys and decent work for adults, particularly by promoting a community-based approach towards the creation of child labour free zones.

2) Working towards child labour free supply chains and sectors (coffee, vegetable seeds, gold, garment/textiles, footwear and natural stone) by engaging and collaborating with businesses and CSR initiatives and other relevant stakeholders.

Area-based approach

In order to achieve its objectives, Stop Child Labour has adopted an area-based approach where the goal is to create Child Labour Free Zones (CLFZ). Child labour free zones are areas where the community is assured that child labour should be stopped and simultaneously they are guided to initiate withdrawal of children from work and getting them into schools. Apart from this, it also aims to work with the private enterprises, civil society organisations and government entities at the national and international level to eradicate child labour from the society. Moreover, it aims towards conscious consumerism where the consumers are aware of the fact that the products they are buying do not involve child labour at any stage of production. Also, it puts the onus on private companies to ensure that no violation of rights takes place in the entire supply chain.

Child Labour Free Zones (CLFZ)

The concept of CLFZ originated in 1992, through the initiative of MV Foundation (an Indian organization and technical partner in SCL Phase-I). In the last two decades it has managed to help over 1 million children to quit work and start schooling. Today, child labour free zones have been adopted  globally and spread across various Asian, African and Latin American nations where local authorities, employers, teachers, parents and children work together to make their areas child labour free.