Description
How to fight child labor?
Few things are more disheartening than seeing a child, hammer in hand, breaking big rocks into smaller ones to sell for pennies. Yet a recent report from the UN estimates that child labor rose for the first time in two decades to 160 million globally as a result of the pandemic. Than 10% of all children on earth. Almost all of them are forced into it.
When I met Eleanor Harry and she told me her story, I felt guilty because I didn’t know anything about child labor. She grew up above a nursery. She became a teacher and then she worked in fashion where she research the topic. Now she uses AI to address it. I got curious.
Me: “Why is child labor important?”
“It deprives young minds of the basic education and social bonds necessary to thrive in a well-functioning society” she replied.
I felt stupid. Because when you put it this way it's obvious.
The topic is so vast and complex that it sometimes feels too far away.
But it affects most of us in the developed world because child labor is lingering in the supply chains of the products we buy.
- Cocoa and coffee beans end up being the chocolate we eat and the coffee we drink
- Tin, tantalum, tungsten, or gold, also known as conflict minerals because they are extracted in dangerous conditions end up in our smartphones or laptops
What can we do about it?
Push companies to capture data in their complex supply chain, identify the root causes, and promote initiatives and projects that can help their suppliers fight it. Unfortunately, stopping working with those small suppliers is not fixing the problem.
In this episode, we talk about:
→ What is child labor (a lot), where it happens, and what we can do about it
→ Why you should read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari or watch Home a documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand
→ Manchester City (disclaimer: this podcast was not sponsored by @Marketing Manchester)
My favorite quotes:
→ “London may be the capital but Manchester is the soul. This is where the industrial revolution started”.
→ “How do you learn the most? Don’t be the smartest in the room. Ask stupid questions”.
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