ADVOCACY PROGRAM
INTERNATIONAL PLATFORMS
RECENT CONFERENCES
CIVIL 20 2019, OSAKA JAPAN
As a member of the Working Group of Employment and Business and Human Rights, we advocated to G20 to take concrete steps to eradicate child labour, forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery, and promote transparency in global supply chains and human rights due diligence in business. ACE President, Yuka Iwatsuki, as acting chair of the C20, presented the C20 2019 Policy Pack which included the above recommendations, to Prime Minister Abe in April 2019, prior to the C20 Summit meeting.
SDG 8.7 DIALOGUES
Leading up to the main summits, ACE organized the SDG 8.7 Dialogues, advocating for the elimination of child labour to be included in the outcome documents. The dialogues were attended by representatives from eight countries, including Argentina and the U.S., and international bodies including the EU, ILO, and OECD, as well as government officials of the Working Group for Labour and Employment.
ACE Managing Director Tomoko Shiroki and Ghana Project Manager Akira Kondo attended the annual meeting of the CLCCG. The platform is made up of the governments of the world's first and second largest cocoa producers, the Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, the U.S. Department of Labour, and the chocolate and cocoa industry.
We presented our initiatives to solve child labour issues in the supply chain through close collaboration between Ghana and Japan, cacao producers, confectionary companies and consumers.
Read more about our collaboration with the Ghanaian government and our SMILE Ghana Community project.
International Conference on Sustainable Brands 2019, Tokyo
The Sustainable Brands conference is the largest international event for those seeking to achieve sustainable business. Companies and organisations showcased their own models and ideas, and participants also actively exchanged ideas. Advocates of cross-sector collaboration proposed linking SDGs initiatives to corporate value enhancement, and called for stakeholder-wide collaboration
ACE Managing Director Tomoko Shiroki presented in two of the sessions on Sustainable Procurement and Human Rights, including "The Forefront of Collaboration between Companies and NGOs! The Challenge of Changing the World starting with the Elimination of Child Labour".
Tomoko Shiroki also presented at a session at the 2020 conference on cross-sector collaboration in solving issues of business and human rights:
OUR JAPANESE NETWORKS
The Stop Child Labour Network is a Japanese network of organizations established in 2004, that share our mission to realise a world without child labour through advocacy and awareness-raising. Made up of 17 members, including NGOs and trade unions, it conducts the “STOP! Child Labour Campaign” around the World Day against Child Labour (June 12). It also collects signatures nationwide for petitions to the Japanese government, which is submitted to the relevant government agencies.
(Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation)
-ACE as Board Member-
Civil Society Platform for Japan’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights
- ACE as Steering Committee Member-
GPeVAC
(Japan Civil Society Network on SDGs: the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children)
CL-Net hands petition to the State Minister for Foreign Affairs
