The report, Why Corporate Social Responsibility is Failing
Children, by Save the Children and The Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition, reviews three voluntary codes for companies and reveals that all three have been violated by leading companies. The
report concludes that voluntary initiatives alone are wholly inadequate as a means of improving the lives of children. This is because they fail to be enforced and because they attract only a small
sub-section of companies in each sector. The codes outlined in the report are the International Code on Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, the Extractive Industries Transparencies
Initiative
(EITI) and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI).In relation to these three codes, the report reveals:
The Breastmilk Code: 25 years on from the adoption of
the International Code on Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, almost 1.4 million children are dying every year because they haven't been adequately breastfed. Aggressive marketing of breast milk
substitutes is still common throughout the world and there is substantial evidence linking corporate promotional activities to reduced breast feeding worldwide.
Extractive Industries
Transparencies Initiative (EITI): The EITI was introduced in 2002 to improve transparency in the oil, gas and mining sectors. Funds from these sectors are often used to fuel conflict and exacerbate
poverty resulting in damaging impacts on children's lives. Five years on, almost none of the relevant companies are fully transparent about their payments to repressive regimes. This has been
linked to the resource curse and the continued death and displacement of over 20 million people.
ETI: The ETI is supposed to protect the rights of workers. However an evaluation has shown
that adherence to the code has been slow and that key aspects of the code, such as paying a living wage, or protecting worker's rights to freedom of association, are entirely ignored. The ILO
reports that there are 218 million working children aged 5-17 around the world. About 5% of these, or 12.3 million children, are employed directly in export industries that support multinational
companies.
Alison Holder, Private Sector Adviser at Save the Children UK, said: "If the Government doesn't enforce these essential codes, companies will continue to think about
the bottom line before their social and environmental impact on the lives of children. We know that children around the world could be saved if companies were more accountable for their actions and
governments have a role to play in ensuring enforceable rules are laid out. It's time both companies and governments got their priorities straight."Deborah Doane, Director of the
Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition added: "The Corporate Responsibility Coalition has been campaigning for some time that voluntary initiatives on corporate responsibility are not working.
Our report examines three very different issues: oil, gas and mining, baby milk and child labour. The conclusions are clear - voluntary initiatives and codes only go so far. UK companies must be more
accountable and transparent in law."Save the Children UK and The Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition are calling for:* Enforcement of all codes in order to penalise
companies who have signed up to the codes but failed to meet their aims.
* Governments to promote laws that underpin codes of conduct at national level, for example through labour laws or
transparency laws.
* Company law to place responsibility on companies to act to the highest standards wherever they operate in the world.
* Governments and companies to support and
implement international measures that can reinforce codes of conduct, such as the UN Human Rights Norms for Business and the OECD guidelines on Multinational Enterprise.
For more
information
Save the Children Press Office: +44 (0)207 012 6841 or out of hours: 07831 650 409
Email address: media@savethechildren.org.uk
Notes to Editors
To receive a PDF copy of the report, please contact SophieElmhirst on 020 7012
6403 (out of hours: 07831 650 409), s.elmhirst@savethechildren.org.uk.
The co-authors of the report are Alison Holder, Private Sector
Adviser of Save the Children and Deborah Doane, Director of The Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition.
For further information on the contents of the report please contact Deborah
(tel: 0207 732 3971; mobile: 07786 556251) or Alison (tel:
0207 012 6701; mobile: 07894 254896).
Save the Children fights for children in the UK and
around the world who suffer from poverty, disease, injustice and violence. We work with them to find lifelong answers to the problems they face.
The Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition works to make changes in UK company law to minimise companies negative impacts on people and the
environment and to maximise companies contribution to sustainable societies.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
