WHAT’S IN OUR 2020 CERTIFICATION PROGRAM?

Assess-and-address
Our approach to tackling child labor, forced labor,
discrimination, and workplace violence andharassment in agriculture

Photo: Charlie Watson

Human rights abuses are widespread in the production ofmany of the world’s most commonly traded goods, from coffee,cocoa, and tea to timber products and palm oil. While progresshas been made over the past couple of decades, child labor,
forced labor, discrimination, and workplace violence andharassment still exist in many of these supply chains.
The reasons for this are complex—multi-dimensional poverty,lack of social protection and laws, and systemic inequality are
just some of the issues to blame. When we look at the issue ofchild labor alone, we see the magnitude of the problem. The
International Labour Organization estimates that there are 152
million children worldwide involved in child labor, with approximately 71% working in agriculture. Many of these children areoften working long hours and in dangerous settings.
While these injustices have never been—and will neverbe—tolerated by the Rainforest Alliance, we have learned throughmany years of experience that simply prohibiting these humanrights violations in our standard is not enough. Outright bans andprohibitions that, if broken, lead to immediate decertification,
have proven to be counterproductive. In fact, this often drives
abuses underground, making them harder for auditors and for
us to detect, thereby perpetuating the problem. That’s why our2020 Certification Program promotes an assess-and-addressapproach to tackling these issues. This new, risk-based approach
focuses on prevention, engagement, improvement, and incentivizing farms and companies to tackle these issues rather than hiding them. It also aligns with the growing international consensus
around good practices in human rights due diligence as laid out
by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and HumanRights and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

How does assess-and-address work?
Assess-and-address requirescertificate holders to set up aninternal committee responsible for assessing and mitigating
risks of child labor, forced labor, discrimination, and workplace
violence and harassment. The committee will monitor the farm,
farm group or processing site for signs of these violations andhave access to training in how to remediate cases if identified.
Remediation steps must follow a new Rainforest Alliance Remediation Protocol. The Rainforest Alliance will also use risk maps to
pinpoint countries and sectors where stricter risk mitigation measures will be required. Within our Supply Chain Requirements, firstprocessors of certified commodities after farm will be required
to implement the assess-and-address system at their facilities
when the risk of human rights abuses is identified as high.
Without solving the root causes of human rights abuses, theproblems will not go away. That’s why the Rainforest Alliancepromotes collaboration between certified farms, governments,
civil society, and supply chain partners to solve these issues
together. Farms will be able to share information on the progress
they are making with their supply chain partners and seek further
support from them in addressing the issue to facilitate this senseof shared responsibility.

Opting for continuous improvement
over pass-failIn our reimagining of certification, we are moving away from theidea that certification is only a series of pass/fail requirements.
By working with farms and processors to correct human rights
issues over time, rather than immediately taking away theircertification when a violation occurs, we are building on existing
continuous improvement approaches to protect the children
and workers that certification is designed to help. In severe cases
sanctions such as suspension and decertification can still be used.

What’s different from our previous standards?
The 2017 Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard
used a simple prohibition approach to all of these issues. TheUTZ Code of Conduct, on the other hand, already requires
farms and farm groups with a risk of child labor to appoint
a community-based liaison officer who is responsible forpreventing, monitoring, and remediating child labor. The 2020
Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard builds on
the UTZ approach to child labor and goes further by extending
the assess-and-address system to forced labor, discrimination,the Rainforest Alliance 2020 Certification Program | ASSESS-AND-ADDRESS

and workplace violence and harassment. This is the first time
our Supply Chain Requirements include criteria for the firstprocessors after farm to tackle human rights violations as well.
The new standard also provides more guidance on how theapproach should be implemented and several tools to assist
certificate holders with implementation.

What other Rainforest Alliance interventions
support this approach?
Beyond certification, the Rainforest Alliance also promotes
human rights through other strategic interventions. For example,
supply chain, landscape, and community programs to tackle
child labor in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Uganda. These programs
set up community and district committees that support farming
communities with access to education and village saving andloan schemes. The committees also raise awareness about childlabor and motivate communities to send their children to school.
What we see is that the more integrated supply chain programs
are within the community or wider landscape, the more sustainable the system to tackle child labor. We are currently looking atexpanding these programs to Asia and Central America as well.
Another example is our work to promote gender equality andwomen’s empowerment among farmers and workers, which isessential to tackle the issues of child labor, forced labor, discrimination and workplace violence and harassment. Throughour Sector Partnerships Program, for instance, we have worked
to empower local chapters of the International Women’s Coffee
Alliance in Honduras and Uganda, which has led to better accessof female actors in the supply chain to inputs, resources, anddecision making.

JUNE 2020

Is this particularly relevant for
certain crops or countries?
Child labor is found in many different sectors and geographies
where multi-dimensional poverty exists, but it is a particularly big risk in the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana andin places where families migrate with their children to harvest
crops, such as coffee farms in Central America and hazelnut
production areas in Turkey. Forced labor is also widespread—any
country or crop that makes heavy use of hired labor, especiallymigrant labor and labor hired through third-party providers, is atrisk. Discrimination and workplace violence and harassment areespecially common with more vulnerable populations, including
women, children and youth, migrants, and indigenous people.

Want to know more?
With support from market partners, the Rainforest Alliance is in
the process of pilot-testing the assess-and-address approachin the Central American coffee sector and West African cocoa
sector. Read more about the assess-and-address approach andwhat to expect in our new certification program.
For specific questions, email us at cs@ra.org

Reimagining Certification and the 2020
Certification Program
Reimagining certification is our long-term vision for thefuture of certification. It is part of our wider strategy at theRainforest Alliance to drive change through our four mainareas of work: climate, forests, livelihoods, and human rights.
In June 2020, the Rainforest Alliance takes the first stepon its journey towards “reimagining certification” with thepublication of its 2020 Certification Program. We’ve beenworking on this new program since 2018, when theRainforest Alliance and UTZ merged.
The 2020 Certification Program—including a new
Sustainable Agriculture Standard—is a unique opportunity
to really change the way that certification works and how it
delivers value to the many people and businesses aroundthe world that use it.

The Rainforest Alliance is working with the Uganda National Teachers
Union to train teachers in identifying students who may be involved inchild labor and providing the extra-curricular support needed to getkids in the classroom full-time.

United States:
125 Broad Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10004
tel: +1 (212) 677-1900
email: info@ra.org

Between June 2020 and mid-2021, the Rainforest Alliancewill roll out the new program around the world, including acomprehensive training plan. Audits against the newprogram will begin in mid-2021.

The Netherlands:
De Ruyterkade 61013 AA, Amsterdam
tel: +31 20 530 8000
email: info@utz.org

Rainforest Alliance@RnfrstAlliance@rainforestalliancerainforest-alliance.org