Children’s Rights in the Indonesian Oil Palm Industry: Improving Company Respect for the Rights of the Child

Stephany Iriana Pasaribu and Frank Vanclay
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Stephany Iriana Pasaribu: Department of Cultural Geography, Urban & Regional Studies Institute, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
Frank Vanclay: Department of Cultural Geography, Urban & Regional Studies Institute, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-21

Abstract: Although companies have many direct and indirect impacts on the lives of children, discussion of the responsibility of business to respect the rights of children has primarily focused on child labor. Using UNICEF’s Children’s Rights and Business Principles as a framework for our analysis, we considered the activities of oil palm plantation companies operating in Indonesia. Our data come from key informant interviews and reflection on two programs established to promote respect for children’s rights in the Indonesian palm oil industry: one by Pusat Kajian Perlindungan Anak (PKPA) (Center for Child Study and Protection); and one by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in conjunction with UNICEF. We considered: how plantation company activities impacted children’s lives; how companies demonstrated respect for children’s rights; and how observance of children’s rights can be improved. We discuss four problematic issues: getting company commitments to children’s rights into policy and practice; having a strong business case for respecting human rights and children’s rights; contradictory objectives within companies; and complexities around children in the workplace. We argue that a children’s rights based approach should be applied to the activities of all organizations. This children’s rights lens is needed to overcome the invisibility of children in society and industry, and to address the root causes of human rights harms. We note that respecting children’s rights will likely contribute to getting a social license to operate and grow.

Keywords: business and human rights; human rights impact assessment; human rights based approach; social impact assessment; environmental, social and governance factors (ESG); corporate social responsibility; social life cycle assessment; no deforestation, no peat, no exploitation (NDPE); due diligence; extractivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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