The Fair Fish project seeks to contribute to a fair global playing field for workers and responsible U.S. businesses by engaging with the private sector to reduce forced labor and human trafficking in the fishing and seafood processing sectors in Thailand. By working directly with companies and their labor recruiters, the project works to help these companies to improve their approaches to addressing forced labor and human trafficking in the recruitment processes, to improve compliance with recruitment policies and procedures by third-party recruiters, and to promote responsible recruitment among other small- and medium-sized enterprises.

This project works to build the capacity of labor and agriculture stakeholders to more effectively implement the National Action Plan on Child Labor and coordinate efforts to combat child labor. It utilizes existing structures at the national, provincial, and municipal levels to expand coordination to reduce the risk that children will be harmed by performing hazardous work in agriculture.

The Adwuma Pa project works to reduce the risk of child and forced labor, and other exploitative labor practices by improving the economic participation and empowerment of women and girls within cocoa-producing communities in Ghana.

The Cobalt project works to address child labor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) cobalt supply chain, with a focus on artisanal and small-scale mining. It supports key stakeholders to develop and implement strategies to reduce child labor and improve working conditions in artisanal and small-scale mines as well as in the broader cobalt supply chain.

The BuildCA2P Project works to build the capacity of Filipino civil society to more effectively detect and combat child labor and other labor abuses in the crop agricultural sector in Mindanao, Philippines. It leverages partnerships with academic and advocacy organizations to build a grassroots movement, empower vulnerable families, connect survivors to grievance mechanisms and services, and reduce the risk that children will be harmed by performing hazardous work in agriculture.

The Research to Practice (RTP) Project applies rigorous research methods in an effort to accelerate global action against child labor and forced labor. The project seeks to help policymakers and practitioners access relevant research and evaluation tools, identifies key knowledge gaps, and facilitates the development of a global research agenda to guide new policy-relevant research efforts. To that end, the project also seeks to broaden and diversify the researcher pool, increasing both the number and capacity of researchers working to shed light on these abusive labor practices.

This project will help businesses establish systems to prevent, detect and eliminate child labor and other forms of labor exploitation from their supply chains, and will assemble a powerful coalition of coffee buyers to collectively incentivize compliance among suppliers. In doing so, the project will help promote supply chains free of exploitative labor and a fair playing field for workers in the U.S. and around the world.

This project will help the Peruvian government and other labor stakeholders build their capacity to prevent, detect and eliminate forced labor and labor trafficking from workplaces in Peru. By bringing together the Ministry of Labor, regional and local governments, law enforcement officials and the judiciary branch, the project will encourage better enforcement through consultation and consensus-building.

Colombia Avanza will build the capacity of civil society to more effectively combat child labor and other labor abuses in Colombia’s coffee sector. By raising awareness and connecting survivors of labor exploitation to services in two of the largest coffee-producing areas of Colombia, the project helps promote supply chains free of exploitative labor and a fair playing field for workers in the U.S. and around the world.

This project will improve enforcement of minimum wage, hours of work and occupational safety and health laws in the agricultural export sector in Costa Rica. By strengthening legal and administrative mechanisms of enforcement while engaging employers and workers to improve compliance in the workplace, the project will help promote supply chains free of exploitative labor and a fair playing field for workers in the U.S. and around the world.

This project will help businesses establish systems to prevent, detect and eliminate child labor and other forms of labor exploitation from their supply chains, and will assemble a powerful coalition of coffee buyers to collectively incentivize compliance among suppliers. In doing so, the project will help promote supply chains free of exploitative labor and a fair playing field for workers in the U.S. and around the world.

All economies, whether in the United States or in Central America’s Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras), need timely, accurate information to fuel efficiencies in their labor markets. These efficiencies, in turn, help ensure social stability and contribute to economic growth – both within countries and beyond. This project will seek to strengthen labor market information systems in the Northern Triangle to create useful labor market intelligence -- helping workers to find jobs, employers to fill the skills gap and economies to grow.

The United States supports the goal of bringing meaningful change to the lives of the 152 million child laborers and the 25 million adults and children in forced labor around the world by eradicating child labor, forced labor and human trafficking. USDOL’s MAP 16 project supports this goal through efforts to (1) improve the knowledge base on child labor, forced labor and human trafficking; (2) improve awareness of these issues through the use of data-driven techniques; (3) strengthen policies and improve the capacity of governments and other stakeholders to combat child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking through national, regional, and global initiatives; and (4) strengthen partnerships to accelerate progress in combatting child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.

The project is helping bridge the skills gap in Argentina by increasing the number and quality of on-the-job training programs, such as internships and apprenticeships, while ensuring these opportunities are accessible to the youth who need them the most. The project is supporting improvements in the legal and policy framework surrounding youth training, raising awareness about the benefits of work-based training, documenting and disseminating good apprenticeship practices in Argentina, and helping both public and private-sector youth training programs to increase their effectiveness.

The EMPOWER project will reduce child labor in Zambia’s eastern province by increasing adolescent girls and vulnerable women’s access to acceptable work and high-quality training opportunities. In addition, the project will increase public awareness on the importance of addressing child labor and strengthen efforts amongst government and the private sector towards gender equality through the promotion of acceptable work for adolescent girls and vulnerable women.

The Better Utilization of Skills for Youth (BUSY) project will help build the capacity of government, employers, workers’ organizations, and civil society actors to establish and expand workplace-based training programs for vulnerable youth, including by identifying gaps in relevant laws and policies.

The Promoting Apprenticeship as a Path for Youth Employment Project is working directly with employers, workers’ organizations, and governments to help increase the number of apprenticeship opportunities for vulnerable youth in Argentina, Costa Rica, and Kenya. The project will create and strengthen private sector networks in support of apprenticeship and other types of work-based training, such as internships, in all three countries, helping employers launch quality work training programs while ensuring these programs are accessible to disadvantaged youth.

The project builds the capacity of workers’ organizations or other civil society organizations to assist foreign migrant workers in Malaysia.

In partnership with the Paraguayan Ministry of Labor, Paraguay Okakuaa is strengthening the enforcement of labor laws in agriculture in the Department of Guairá and providing educational and livelihood opportunities for families vulnerable to child labor, particularly young women. And in response to the government’s political will to address forced labor, the project is now expanding efforts to the Chaco, a significant cattle- and beef-exporting region. By addressing labor issues in global supply chains, particularly in the beef sector, the project will help ensure a fair playing field for U.S. goods in global export markets.

Our impact evaluation projects use “gold standard” quantitative techniques to evaluate the impact of interventions on reducing child labor, forced labor and human trafficking—part of a broader ILAB effort to build rigorous evidence on what works to secure and protect the rights of children and adults. Such evaluations support our partner governments’ evidence-based policymaking efforts, and also help identify proven strategies to inform ILAB’s future investments in class-leading global programs to combat child labor and forced labor.

Our impact evaluation projects use rigorous quantitative techniques to evaluate the impact of interventions on reducing child labor, forced labor and human trafficking—part of a broader ILAB effort to build rigorous evidence on what works to secure and protect the rights of children and adults. Such evaluations support our partner governments’ evidence-based policymaking efforts, and also help identify proven strategies to inform ILAB’s future investments in global programs to combat child labor and forced labor.

Our impact evaluation projects use rigorous quantitative techniques to evaluate the impact of interventions on reducing child labor, forced labor and human trafficking—part of a broader ILAB effort to build rigorous evidence on what works to secure and protect the rights of children and adults. Such evaluations support our partner governments’ evidence-based policymaking efforts, and also help identify proven strategies to inform ILAB’s future investments in global programs to combat child labor and forced labor.

Better Work is a comprehensive program that brings together all levels of the apparel industry to improve working conditions and respect of labor rights for workers, while boosting the competitiveness of apparel businesses. As a result of their participation with Better Work, export apparel factories in Jordan have improved compliance with labor law including issues of compensation, contracts, occupational safety and health and working time. By enhancing working conditions, Better Work Jordan increases the factories’ productivity and profitability.

Better Work is a comprehensive program that brings together all levels of the apparel industry to improve working conditions and respect of labor rights for workers, while boosting the competitiveness of apparel businesses. As a result of their participation with Better Work, export apparel factories in Bangladesh have improved compliance with labor laws, including on issues of compensation, contracts, occupational safety and health, and working time. By enhancing working conditions, Better Work Bangladesh increases the factories’ productivity and profitability.

The goal of the project is to reduce child labor in Burma through the establishment of a comprehensive, inclusive and efficient multistakeholder response.

This project aims to reduce the worst forms of child labor in the home-based production of carpets in Afghanistan by designing and piloting a sustainable social compliance system in collaboration with at least one carpet company.

The goal of the project is to reduce child domestic work by promoting decent work for domestic workers

This technical cooperation project aims to strengthen the capacity of workers to file complaints/cases for labor law violations. The Grantee will implement, in partnership with USDOL, a project whose overarching objective is to raise awareness of and improve workers’ ability to protect and claim their labor rights in Colombia.

The project will reduce the overall number of children engaged in exploitative child labor in artisanal gold mines and cotton fields of Burkina Faso. In the three targeted regions, the project will provide services to promote children’s ability to access educational opportunities and awareness of the long term benefits of schooling. The project will also assist households in meeting their livelihood needs in order to reduce their reliance on child labor.

Vulnerable populations in rural and urban areas are victims of forced labor in Brazil and Peru. They endure abusive working conditions, debt bondage, deception, intimidation and threats, and restriction of movement, among other unlawful labor practices. Some victims of forced labor have been rescued from forced-labor conditions within agricultural supply chains or manufacturing businesses with domestic and global reach. The Consolidating and Disseminating Efforts To Combat Forced Labor in Brazil and Peru project works with governmental institutions, the private sector, and civil society organizations to strengthen their capacity to address forced labor at all levels. In Brazil, the project supports Mato Grosso state’s Integrated Action program to assist forced-labor victims, while in Peru, the project helps the Peruvian government implement forced-labor policies through exchange activities between Brazil and Peru.

Project Objectives: The overarching objective is to develop regulations for the new labor legislation consistent with International Labor Standards, educate the tripartite partners on the provisions of the laws and regulations, and build their capacity to promote good industrial relations with the new provisions’ application in practice.

To modernize occupational, mine, chemical and occupational medicine training for the Indian Government.

This project will provide assistance to export industries to boost competitiveness and productivity by building better systems for factory-level human resource management (HRM), improving compliance with international labor standards and strengthening worker-management dialogue. In the initial stages, the project will focus on the textile and RMG industries, with a view to expanding into the food processing sector (subject to further information and scoping).

The ABK3 project raised awareness, strengthened advocacy, and built the capacity of community, government, and sugar industry stakeholders to reduce exploitative child labor in 11 sugarcane producing provinces in the Philippines. The project provided educational support to help children succeed and stay in school, and assisted families in increasing agricultural productivity, finding alternative sources of income, and linking to social protection programs in order to alleviate the root causes of child labor. ABK3 worked closely with the sugarcane industry and Government of the Philippines to integrate child labor prevention into policies, guidelines, and training to ensure that protections for children were addressed at every stage of sugarcane production.

The project aims to prepare a new labor code that conforms with ILO conventions on international labor standards that can be submitted to the Government for passage into law. It also aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the labor inspection system, increase knowledge among the social partners of the rights, obligations and services under national labor laws, and improved service delivery by MoLSAMD.

Project Objective: Contribute to the elimination of child labor in El Salvador, in particular the worst forms.

Project Objectives: To combat child labor, with special attention to the worst forms of child labor in agriculture, through improved child labor policy and legislation, and the promotion of educational opportunities for children and sustainable livelihoods for vulnerable households

Reduce the number of children who work and at risk of becoming engaged in exploitive child labor in Jordan and enhance family livelihood opportunities to address its root causes

To contribute to the elimination of the worst forms of child labor among racially and socially excluded populations — primarily Afro-descendants and indigenous— through horizontal cooperation.

This project seeks to contribute to regional and national initiatives to combat the WFCL in West Africa

The project aims to reduce the incidence of the worst forms of child labor in Kenya.

The project aims to support the Government of Malawi’s efforts to implement the National Action Plan to combat child labor.

Better Work is a comprehensive program that brings together all levels of the apparel industry to improve working conditions and respect of labor rights for workers, while boosting the competitiveness of apparel businesses. As a result of their participation with Better Work, export apparel factories in Haiti have improved compliance with labor law including issues of compensation, contracts, occupational safety and health and working time. By enhancing working conditions, Better Work Haiti increases the factories’ productivity and profitability.