to download the document in PDF format - Child Centre: Expert ...

Governments play an auxiliary role through outreach support, advocacy and funding, butdo not participate directly in the network. The Global Compact Office maintains primaryresponsibility for the facilitation of the network, but depends heavily on the collaborationof the six UN agencies and defers to the authoritative guidance of the UN Secretary-General and his Global Compact Advisory Council.The Compact asks companies to “… embrace, support and enact, within their sphere ofinfluence…” ten principles, divided into 4 categories (human rights, labour, environmentand anti-corruption). 86 As the present discussion explores international human rightsobligations as they relate to CSEC, the analysis will focus only on the first two categories.The human rights provisions state businesses should: Support and respect the protection ofinternationally proclaimed human rights; and, make sure they are not complicit in humanrights abuses. The language, “support” and “respect”, means that corporations must refrainfrom any action or omission that violates human rights or encourages or assists in thecommission of such violations. “Internationally proclaimed human rights” refer to rightscontained in the UDHR. To support and respect these rights, several general avenuesare suggested, including: Developing company policies; performing human rights impactassessments; and consulting with workers and their representatives. More specifically,businesses are encouraged to provide safe and healthy working conditions, ensure they donot use forced or child labour, or provide access to basic health care, education and housingfor workers and their families.The complicity principle compliments the support and respect principle. Complicitysuggests facilitating someone else’s violations of human rights. Complicity occurs in severalforms: direct, beneficial and silent. Commentators note that what constitutes indirect(beneficial and silent) complicity is more difficult to determine than direct complicity. Toensure non-complicity, it is suggested that corporations make a human rights assessmentof host countries, consider if the company has human rights policies protecting workers, orimplement a company monitoring system to ensure implementation.The labour provisions state businesses should: uphold the freedom of association and theeffective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; the elimination of all formsof forced and compulsory labour; the effective abolition of child labour; and eliminatediscrimination in respect of employment and occupation. This discussion will focus onforced labour and child labour as they are directly relevant to the discussion of CSEC. 87Forced and compulsory labour occurs in different forms, including slavery or bondedlabour, the work or service of prisoners, or child labour where the child has no choice butPrivate Sector Accountability in Combating the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children|29