GOOD PRACTICE
Eliminating Child Labour: Lessons learned
from Belize’s Sugar Cane Sector
NOVEMBER 2021

|1INTRODUCTION
70% of all children involved in child labour arefound in the agricultural sector, and sugar cane
production is no exception. In fact, multiple studies
from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean,
and Asia and the Pacific, have identified children
as young as five working on sugar cane farms.
Children are often introduced to cane production by
family members running their own farms. Others areemployed directly or indirectly by job contractors oradult workers. Many of these children are excluded
from school and denied a quality education. They
are also exposed to multiple workplace hazards,
including insect and snake bites, machete cuts, andrespiratory ailments, among others. In other words,
they live in unacceptable circumstances.

A HOLISTIC APPROACH
Fairtrade has developed an inclusive program toeradicate child labour. It includes relevant Standards
for Small Producer Organizations, Fairtrade Minimum
Price and Premium, as well as protection policies for children and vulnerable adults when the worst
forms of child labour, forced labour and/or gender based violence identifications are detected.
Fairtrade also has projects to prevent child labour by tackling its causes, such as a signature monitoring
and remediation system, called the Youth Inclusive Community Based Monitoring and Remediation
System, or YICBMR. Designed as a three-phased approach, YICBMR starts with the involvement of theproducer organization, farmers, farm workers and their families, and then scales up to involve supply
chain actors sourcing from these producer organizations. In phase 3, the monitoring and responsesystem becomes part of the government’s child labour monitoring system. Fairtrade’s YICBMR
system is inclusive and necessitates social dialogue and engagement with involved stakeholders.
The key driver of the YICBMR system are the youth monitors, young men and women from

|2target communities spanning from the ages of 18 to 28. Youth monitors co-run, together
with producer organizations, the YICBMR system through a child labour committee. These
are selected through a formal recruitment process after which they are trained in rightsbased data collection, analysis and decision making. They play key roles in both formal andinformal stakeholder engagement by presenting findings on child labour and identifying whatworked and did not work effectively in terms of remedial actions. They also co-lead advocacy
efforts targeted to governments. Fairtrade’s YICBMR system has already been piloted in 17
countries across multiple products such as cocoa, sugar cane, coffee, gold, vanilla and flowers.
Fairtrade’s approach is to enable producer organizations in partnership with involved youth todevelop a youth policy and guidelines to promote decent youth employment, skills development
and business opportunities. The engagement of youth in agriculture is critical to Fairtrade’s global
strategy in enabling and empowering the next generation of agrarian farmers, workers, tradersand leaders.

|3BELIZE: SUGAR CANE PRODUCER ORGANIZATIONSAND SOCIAL DIALOGUE
Predominantly produced in the northern districts of Corozal and Orange Walk, sugar is oneof Belize’s most important agricultural exports. A full 94% of the sugar cane produced inthe northern districts of Belize is Fairtrade certified. Yet, the 2013 ILO and Government of
Belize’s National Child Activity Survey showed an increasing rate of children’s employment inagriculture, with Corozal having the second highest rate and Orange Walk the third highest.
Belize’s Families and Children Act (2000) defines a child as “a person below the age of18” and Article 7 of the Act prohibits children under 18 from being employed or engaged inany activity that may be detrimental to their health, education, or mental, physical or moral
development. However, the law does not specify which employment activities are detrimental
to children, and neither have the types of light work permissible for children been identified
in Belizean law. Moreover, Article 169 of the Labor Act places the general minimum age ofemployment at 12 years, whereas Article 3(1) of the Shops Act sets the minimum age at 14for work in wholesale or retail trade or business. Thus, children at the age of 14 can obtain aSocial Security ID Card and are permitted to work, and some indeed do cut cane. Belizean law
is therefore inconsistent with international standards on the minimum age for employment andon the definition of hazardous work and light work permissible for children have not yet been
identified. This inconsistency is exacerbated by the socio-economic realities on the ground,particularly as children between the ages of 15 and 18 years have few employment and skills
development opportunities in the sugar cane growing areas of Corozal and Orange Walk.
The Belize Sugar Cane Farmer Association (BSCFA), with active members in Corozal andOrange Walk, became Fairtrade certified in 2008. At the time of initial certification, they
represented more than 5,000 sugar cane farmers. In 2014, BSCFA was suspended by
FLOCERT, Fairtrade’s certification body, for child labour and was issued corrective actions.
After a short initial period of denial and disbelief, the BSCFA took action in correcting thechild labour problem in its operations and obtained recertification status six months later.
As a first step, BSCFA used the 2013 Report of the National Child Activity Survey tounderstand children’s employment involvement in the country and referred to a report issued
by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) on Core Labour Standards in Belize,
as a basis towards recognizing that child labour does indeed occur, especially on family
farms. This, in and of itself, was an important step. In 2015, most Belizean stakeholders,including the government, did not admit to child labour in sugar cane production.

|4This was followed by BSCFA implementing Fairtrade’s YICBMR system, alongside aninternal control system, for the elimination of child labour starting in 2015. These systems
are still in place and continue to operate to this day. Through YICBMR, the BSCFA:• Developed and published a commitment and policy on child labour and child protection.
• Mapped community risk hotspots.
• Hired local youth monitors and trained them on awareness raising, risk assessment and monitoring
through household surveys and community outreach.
• Supported access to remedies in individual cases of child labour.
• Insisted with the government and the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry to prioritize alegally binding national child labour monitoring and remediation system. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎At the end of 2015, using findings from its YICBMR system, BSCFA launched the first-ever multistakeholder social dialogue forum on child labour in Belize’s sugar cane production sector withparticipants from farmers’ groups, the Governments of Belize, the US, Mexico and Honduras, theILO, UNICEF, the National Teachers Union, industry and civil society organizations, and educational
institutions. Fairtrade also passed on the forum’s takeaways to the International Union of Food,Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF). A second
multi-stakeholder forum was hosted in 2016 by BSCFA to call attention to the need to develop
effective and time-bound remediation actions that lead to sustainable solutions to the child labour
problem on family farms. Importantly, this also included a further call to the Government of Belize|5to adopt a list of a hazardous work prohibited for all children in the sugar cane sector. In 2017 theMinistry of Labor announced the activation of the Labor Advisory Board, Tripartite Body, National
Child Labor Committee, and Interest-Based Bargaining Stakeholders (Labour Sub-Council).
In 2018 and on the basis of an EU-funded study that used Fairtrade’s YICBMR system incombination with farmer inputs, BSCFA together with other producer organizations drew up
their own draft proposal for a Hazardous
Child Labour List. BSCFA was invited torepresent other Fairtrade producers anddiscuss their proposal at the Belize Chamberof Commerce and the Labour Sub Council.
Finally, BSCFA is working together with Fairtrade
to generate guidelines for enabling decent
youth employment, skills development andbusiness opportunities throughout its operations,
including enabling opportunities for youth
farmers and youth workers to hold managementlevel positions. To do so, BSCFA has formed aworking youth group, composed of involved
staff, farmers and farm workers, and has recentlyapproached the National Trade Union Congressof Belize, Belize Workers Union and the Belize
National Teachers Union to request trainings andcapacity building for the youth in the WorkingGroup.

INCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT AND
DEVELOPMENT
In the case of the Belize’s sugar cane sector, Fairtrade and its certified producer organizations
have contributed to promoting social dialogue and spotlighting the views of involved farmers,
farm workers and their families, including children, youth, women and migrants. The work inBelize illustrates the progress that can be made when small producer organizations and involved
youth are enabled to lead the fight against child labour. Since 2015, BSCFA has reported lessincidents of child labour, and has publically called upon the government to rigorously enforce its
child labour standards in the sugar cane sectors of Orange Walk and Corozal and encouraged
the Belize sugar industry to report any child labour allegations occurring on its members’ farms
to the BSCFA’s Committee of Management for follow-up.

THE GLOBAL DEAL FOR DECENT WORK AND INCLUSIVE GROWTHThe Global Deal is a multi-stakeholder partnership that aims to address the challenges in
the global labour market to enable all people to benefit from globalisation. It highlights thepotential of sound industrial relations and enhanced social dialogue to foster decent work andquality jobs, to increase productivity, and to promote equality and inclusive growth. The Global
Deal welcomes governments, businesses, employers’ organisations, trade unions, as well ascivil society and other organisations to join the partnership.

GOOD PRACTICES FROM GLOBAL DEAL PARTNERSThe Global Deal encourages its partners to share examples of effective and innovative
experiences in the area of social dialogue. These are published on the website in a repository thatenables knowledge sharing and facilitates peer learning, helping Global Deal partners and otheractors to improve social dialogue and sound industrial relations. It provides a valuable resourcethat illustrates different forms of social dialogue from a variety of regions and countries. Partners
are welcome to send relevant experiences and working practices to the Global Deal SupportUnit.
CONTACT
globaldeal@oecd.org

www.theglobaldeal.com@theglobaldeal