Business urged to be active for good of children

Companies must commit to respecting and supporting rights through their core operations

A NEW study from the Global Child Forum and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) indicates that while southern African companies fall below the global average in reporting issues on children’s rights, several of them are pioneering engagement with these issues.

The study, titled Children’s Rights and the Corporate Sector in Southern Africa, is being launched in Pretoria today at the high-level Global Child Forum on Southern Africa.

It highlights how business can bring significant improvement to the lives and rights of children, and urges businesses to commit to respecting and supporting children’s rights through their core activities and operations.

“This study is the first of its kind for the region and is based on an analyses of how publicly listed southern African companies address children’s rights,” said Fiona Rotberg PhD, research director at the Global Child Forum.

“We hope our research results, along with the creation of this benchmark, will help catalyse learning and knowledge sharing to help inspire initiatives within businesses that benefit children, their future and their rights.”

The purpose of the study – which analysed 271 JSE-listed companies operating in the region – has been to create a benchmark to analyse trends and track progress on how the corporate sector addresses children’s rights over time.

This baseline study fills a gap in research and understanding on how companies in the region directly and indirectly pose risks and impact children and their future.

“The study offers companies a framework to assess their own actions,” said Adam Ikdal, senior and managing partner at BCG southern Africa.

“Notably, in comparison to our other studies around the world, southern Africa is, generally speaking, only slightly behind the average on some measures, and ahead of some of the other regions we have surveyed. There is good momentum to be built on,” he continued.

Initial results show that while 43 percent of the companies surveyed have policies related to child labour, only 1.5 percent have policies that extend to child rights issues other than child labour.

Only 8 percent of the surveyed companies reported that their board of directors or an accountable board committee has overall responsibility for sustainability, human rights, or social issues that include children’s rights.

Findings indicate that although the companies scored an average of 2.4 points out of a possible nine points (compared to a global average of 3.4 points), there are higherscoring companies among those surveyed.

For example, Imperial has a number of projects aimed at keeping children safe, including the Scholar Patrol Improvement Project.

Geoff Rothschild, former chairperson of the JSE and a speaker at the conference, said South Africa’s investment in health care, education and sport was of the utmost importance.

An example of a project in the area of health is the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, a paediatric and teaching hospital which will be opened in Joburg next year, providing much-needed tertiary care.

The study also revealed that companies generally perform higher on indicators that have a less direct impact on their supply chain or business operations, such as donating to charity, and score lower in indicators that are more closely related to their business operations.