In 1997, we were 5 Japanese college students asking ourselves what we could do about the child poverty and exploitation we were seeing throughout our respective travels and research.  

  

That was the year that Kailash Satyarthi (later a Nobel Peace Prize laureate) was architecting the Global March against Child Labour, the largest worldwide civil society movement standing up for the most exploited children across the globe. We wanted Japan to participate in the event that was to be held a year later in some 103 countries around the world.  

 

We saw the march as our call to action and came together to  establish ACE (Action against Child Exploitation).  

 

At first, we were just a group of people with a common goal. After achieving our initial aim of organizing the march in Tokyo and Osaka in 1998, we realized this was just the beginning.

 

Back then, we didn't possess much know-how, we just knew we had to act. Quickly realizing that to achieve the biggest impact as a small organization we needed to understand and optimize our strengths, we decided to leverage our privileged position in Japan to connect consumers and 

corporations to children and communities.

 

 Over 20 years on, we have accumulated extensive field experience and professional expertise to resolve issues of child labour throughout global supply chains. We intend to continue to do so.