Addressing Children’s Rights in Business – An Assessment from Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Companies can affect children’s rights in all stages of their value chains. Children hold various roles in relation to business including as consumers of products (downstream), as beneficiaries of employee programs (midstream), as members of local communities around business operations, and as workers in value chains (mid- or upstream). Despite these multiple intersections between business and children, companies rarely address children’s rights specifically beyond their general commitments to human rights. Typically, children’s rights are exclusively featured in standard contractual clauses for suppliers and in sporadic philanthropic activities. This study was conducted to assess the role that children’s rights currently play for businesses in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. In particular, this study addresses the following questions: What is the current understanding of business and children’s rights in corporate practice? What activities do companies undertake in connection with children’s rights? What are the challenges companies are facing when realizing children’s rights and what are the opportunities to advance children’s rights in the value chain? The findings of this study provide insights into how to support businesses to engage more specifically with children’s rights. The insights serve as a basis to support businesses on how to address the integration of children’s rights and inform UNICEF Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the UN Global Compact Network Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and other stakeholders on how to advance children’s rights in corporate practice. Children’s rights in business is a nascent topic that is gaining traction because of emerging mandatory human rights due diligence (mHRDD) legislations. This study is timely and relevant because businesses will soon have to comply with two new laws: the Swiss Conflict Minerals and Child Labor Due Diligence Legislation and, once adopted, the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainbility Due Diligence. Both laws require companies to engage with children’s rights specifically. The year 2022 also marks the 10th anniversary of the Children’s Rights and Business Principles (CRBP), a framework published by the UN Global Compact, UNICEF, and Save the Children for understanding and addressing the impact of business on the rights and well-being of children.