Child labour is a big issue. But, not all child labour is exploitive or wrong. Children have been part of the economic structure of the family for millennia. Working children have been both an economic necessity and an integral part of their own learning and education. To keep updated on postings and events go to www.csrtraininginstitute.com and sign up for the newsletter. If interested the CSR Knowledge Centre http://bit.ly/CSRknowledge contains a series of short, pragmatic articles on CSR Strategy, Management and related areas.

1. Helping business to
serve shareholders AND society
SIMULTANEOUSLY
A guest post by Wayne Dunn, President & Founder, CSR Training Institute
It is time for a more nuanced debate
on child labour
www.csrtraininginstitute.com/knowledge-centre

2. It is time for a more nuanced debate
on child labour
Child labour is a big issue. But, not all child labour is exploitive or
wrong. Children have been part of the economic structure of the
family for millennia.
Working children have been both an economic necessity and an
integral part of education.
If, that is, you assume that education includes practical preparation
for adulthood and being a productive member of society.
Children have long been expected to contribute to the collective
workload of the family and be part of the economic fabric that held
family and community together.
I was milking cows and doing other chores on the farm for as long as
I can remember. In the early 1960s, well before I was six.
Reposted from Toby Webb’s Sustainability = Smart Business Blog
http://sustainablesmartbusiness.com/2015/09/its-time-for-a-more-
nuanced-debate-on-child-labour/
A guest post by
Wayne Dunn
President & Founder,
CSR Training Institute
In West Africa, child labour
is at it’s most complex as
an issue

3. Page 02
When I was nine I would take a tractor and, by myself, go work the
fields all day, taking a lunch and coming home at night for supper.
My father spoke of taking a team of horses and doing the same thing
when he was the same age.
I’d also work picking rocks to clear fields for crops, cleaning barns,
building fence, milking cows, etc. The summer I was twelve I worked
as a man on a logging crew cutting, peeling and piling pulpwood.
It was exhausting and, at the time, I hated it. But, it taught me life
lessons and prepared me for a world that didn’t always give me what
I wanted on a platter.
Sometimes, but not often, it interfered with school, but I learnt more
useful life lessons from the few days that I missed school than I would
have learned with another day in the classroom.
Yes, times change and it is fifty years
since I was nine. Standards and
societal norms and expectations
have shifted. Yet, I am proud of the
fact that I was able to help my family
and I think it helped prepare me for
life as a productive adult.
My father did me a favour by
requiring the work he did from me.
It was hard, it wasn’t fun at the time,
but, it helped support our family and
it prepared me for life, where hard
work is key to success.
But this kind of work is very different from the exploitation many
children face today. It’s clear that the worst forms of child labour must
be addressed and stopped.
It is time for a more nuanced debate
on child labour
Nestlé Cocoa Plan, tackling
child labour in West Africa

4. Page 03
These obviously include servitude types of situations, mind-numbing
factory work for young children, dangerous working conditions, and
work that prevents any chance for formal education. These are all
exploitive and are worthy of campaigning hard against.
But people and organizations should learn to better distinguish
between exploitive child labour situations and those that are simply
a normal and healthy part of family life and economics in much of
the world.
Too often there is an indiscriminate lumping of all child labour into the
‘this is terrible and must be stopped’ bucket. Exploitive child labour
is wrong. Period.
But normal youth participation in family economics should not be used
by campaigners to advance their causes, agendas and financing.
How do I distinguish them? I try (not always successfully) to simply
apply common sense. A ten-year old that is regularly kept out of
school to work on the cocoa farm or palm oil, or retail shop, or
whatever the family economic base might be is wrong. Period.
A ten-year old that helps on the farm, or retail shop or other business
after school and might, in exceptional circumstances, miss a day
or two of school for harvest or other emergencies is often simply a
necessary part of the economic survival of a family.
Practices involving child that are made to work in unsafe conditions
in artisanal mining or fishing are of course wrong and should be
addressed. Safety is important for all workers and especially for
children.
I don’t know of a bulletproof framework for distinguishing between
exploitive and non-exploitive child-labour. Maybe there isn’t one.
It is time for a more nuanced debate
on child labour

5. Page 04
But, I do know that not all child-labour is exploitive and campaigners
and those of us that read and react to their reports and communications
should learn to ask more questions and try to better understand the
difference.
Campaigns and communications that fail to capture these nuances
might capture short-term headlines for the campaigner, but they can
also cause harm to families.
Legitimate youth support to precarious family economic situations
can become lumped in with exploitive child-labour practices.
When we capture productive family economic practices and life
lessons in all-encompassing child labour campaigns we do harm to
people and families, and ultimately, over time we detract from those
exploitive child labour situations that are so important to address.
My challenge to the campaigning NGOs out there is to begin
producing research that makes these distinctions clearer.
Explicitly recognize that not all child labour is bad. Some is good and
necessary.
This would allow us all to focus on eliminating the worst forms of
child labour rather than treating the whole area in the same way.
It is time for a more nuanced debate
on child labour
Indonesian child fishing in
the forests of Sumatra (with
parent out of shot)

6. Below are some recent articles and publications on Corporate Social
Responsibility and stakeholder engagement that you may find interesting.
Mining Schools Hi Tech in CSR
CSR SWOT
discover risk, value and more
Eleven strategies
for maximizing value from CSR
CSR in Budget Crunch Times
12 strategies for success
Multi-sector CSR Partnerships
Natural Partnerships – Unnatu-
ral Partners
From Pariah to Exemplar
Applying the 6 best practices
Engaging Internal Stakeholders
Seven proven strategies
CSR Communications
Eleven mistakes to avoid
Stakeholder Engagement
Six best practices
Creating a CSR Program
in eight self-serving steps
Let’s be honest:
Internal CSR Communication
Sucks!
CSR Metrics:
You can’t measure temperature
with a speedometer
Stakeholder Engagement
Five common mistakes
CSR Value Continuum
A unique perspective on Shared
Value
Smarter CSR Budgets
8 steps to connect budget to
value
28 Expert tips
On stakeholder engagement
Don’t be an Altruistic Angel
Be transparent about what’s in it
for you
13 Mistakes that prevent & destroy
Multi-sector CSR partnerships
NHL Sustainability Report
Good but incomplete.
Four Strategies for
Local Content Success

7. Professor Dunn brings a practical and realistic approach to CSR, blending theory and
practice to develop realistic models and approaches to address real-world challenges
Dr. Ellis Armstrong
Former CFO, BP Exploration
…coherent, thoughtful, stimulating and insightful… state of the art! The network of
participants from the public, private and civil society sectors was incredible, some of
the leading experts in the field.
Kojo Busia, Ph. D.
Snr. Mineral Sector Governance Advisor
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa/UNECA
…pragmatic blend of theory and practice, very applicable to helping organizations
meet real-world challenges.
Frank McShane
Manager, Corporate Responsibility Policy and Ethics, Talisman Energy
… readily available to provide support to organizations like Amref that are seeking
partnerships, and looking to bring about positive change in a collaborative and concrete
way. Wayne and the CSR Training Institute helped us to identify and connect with
potential partners and are always available. The training, the expertise, the network
and the overall support are world-class.
Onome Ako
Director of Strategic Partnerships, Amref Health Africa
“The program enhanced the CSR knowledge and strategic skills of our Kosmos Energy
Ghana team, and offered the participants a platform for networking with professionals
from other organizations across Africa and Ghana.”
Reg Manhas
Sr VP Kosmos Energy
Very much helpful Wayne; some of the tips and questions you gave will be an extremely
helpful guide in the process of developing a CSR Strategy for my company.
Emmanuel Aubynn
Regional Social Responsibility Manager, Newmont Africa
The CSR Program was excellent. A key aspect of my work is to encourage and support
private sector development that contributes to Ghana’s overall socio-economic
growth. The learning that I and my staff take away from attending this program will
help us immensely with this responsibility. I highly recommend this program.
Hon. Rashid Pelpuo (MP)
Minister of State for Private Sector Development and Public Private Partnerships
(Ghana)
New and exciting insights into the theory and practice of CSR… great faculty and
participants, very diversified. An excellent learning experience, very practical and
useful. I’m very happy I was able to participate in it.
Hon InusahFuseini (MP)
Minister of Lands and Natural Resources (Ghana)
WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT OUR WORK

8. Should Business Serve
Helping business to serve society and
shareholders, SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Should Business Serve
WAYNE DUNN, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER
SHAREHOLDERS?
SOCIETY?
IT SHOULD SERVE BOTH.
Wayne Dunn is President & Founder of the CSR Training Institute and
Professor of Practice in CSR at McGill. He’s a Stanford Sloan Fellow
with a M.Sc. in Management from Stanford Business School.
He is a veteran of 20+ years of award winning global CSR and
sustainability work spanning the globe and covering many industries
and sectors including extensive work with Indigenous Peoples in
Canada and globally. His work has won major international awards
and has been used extensively as ‘best-practice’ by industry and
academia.
He’s also worked oil rigs, prospecting, diamond drilling, logging,
commercial fishing, heavy equipment operator, truck driver and
underwater logging, done a couple of start-ups and too many other
things to mention.
Wayne’s career includes big successes, and spectacular failures. He
hopes he’s learned equally from both.
www.csrtraininginstitute.com