Save the Children

FCA member since October 2021

Save the Children is the world’s leading independent children’s organisation. For over 100 years, Save the Children has been fighting for the rights of children worldwide. Save the Children is recognised for its commitment to accountability, innovation and collaboration. As quickly and as effectively as Save the Children responds to tsunamis and civil conflict, it works to resolve the ongoing struggles children face every day — poverty, hunger, illiteracy, child labour and disease — and replaces them with hope for the future. For more information, please visit www.savethechildren.de.

ASM-mined cobalt is associated with a multitude of human and child-rights infringements. With our rights-based programming in mining communities and by promoting child-rights sensitive corporate sourcing and buying practices we aim at improving (1) the protection of children and their families as well as their (2) access to rights (e.g. education, health, sustainable livelihoods etc.). We firmly believe that a meaningful contribution to these goals can only be made in partnership with committed corporate actors. As a child rights organisation, we would like to contribute to change by collaborating with key duty-bearers in the cobalt sector and support the sustainable realisation of child rights in mining communities of the DRC.

Save the Children, The Centre and the FCA began their collaboration in with the development of a much-needed child labour referral system for artisanal mine sites. With such a referral system, cases of child labour can be identified in collaboration with local authorities and cooperative members and referred to accredited case managers who will tailor an individual remediation plan for each of those children identified.

“Membership of the FCA comes at a crucial point in time for Save the Children. The often detrimental impact that ASM cobalt mining has on children and their families, the consequences of the pandemic and an increased global demand for cobalt as the world shifts towards green energy means urgent joint action is needed to ensure that children in ASM communities have access to their rights, are safe from child labour and grow up in families that can sustain a living from safe and decent jobs.”

said Florian Westphal, CEO Save the Children Germany.

Anna Thinius
Manager Sustainable Supply Chains
[email protected]

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