Child rights and mining toolkit
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The Children’s Rights and Business Principles1 developed by UNICEF, the United Nations
Global Compact and Save the Children, in 2012, are the first comprehensive set of principles to
guide companies on the full range of actions they can take in the workplace, marketplace and
community to respect and support children’s rights. As part of its approach to implementing
these principles, UNICEF is developing sector-specific guidance for businesses that are
aiming to integrate respect and support for children’s rights into their policies, operations, due
diligence, relationships with governments and investments in local communities.In 2014, UNICEF commissioned action research with mining companies to identify and analyse
the sector’s impacts on children’s rights and better understand how companies are currently
managing these impacts. In consultation with multiple mining companies, this work resulted in
the UNICEF Extractive Pilot report, Children’s Rights and the Mining Sector.2Companies in the mining sector almost uniformly agree that children are vulnerable
stakeholders within the community. But they often encounter challenges in understanding
how children could be affected directly, rather than only as a result of mining impacts on
adult family members or the broader community. Failing to consider children as distinctive
stakeholders means that companies may not identify their specific impacts on children. This
leads to critical gaps in most standard approaches to social, environmental and human rights
due diligence and management systems.As a follow-up to the Extractive Pilot, UNICEF commissioned Synergy Global Consulting
to develop practical guidance for mining companies that want to take concrete steps in
addressing their potential positive or negative child rights impacts. UNICEF’s Child Rights and
Mining Toolkit is the result of this work.