Many of our supply chains are in emerging markets across rural areas, and can involve intermediaries and other third-parties. This makes eradicating labour issues complicated, however we continue to monitor our supply chain activities and where necessary, take remediation action.
Our activities are broad, from working with farmers, to driving in challenging environments, processing and packing in factories, managing inventories in warehouses, transporting goods, and working in offices. We commit to national laws and the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Global Compact’s guiding principles. Review our commitments and activities throughout 2021 in our latest annual report.
Through our safety programme – An Even Safer Olam – we deliver training to identify and assess risks so we can eliminate them where possible or reduce them to an acceptable level where we cannot remove them altogether. We promote an open and honest culture and shared responsibility in reporting risks promptly.
We are committed to ensuring all employees are treated with dignity and fairness. Our Fair Employment Policy defines a workplace where the rights of all employees are respected.
To support our employees and workers, we provide training on employment laws, workplace rights and sessions for managers to build understanding and raise awareness of employment and labour rights. Last year over 16,000 employees received training on identifying and preventing sexual harassment among other areas.
During the year we rolled out revised Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) standards for all our locations. 97% of our sites with over 20 employees having access to toilets, basins and fresh drinking water. We continue to advance on our commitment to provide a safe and decent workplace.
We aspire to purchase raw materials and products produced in a socially responsible, economically profitable, and environmentally sustainable manner. In 2021, 92% of directly originated volumes in our priority supply chains were sourced through suppliers committed to the Olam Supplier Code. We continue to pursue our goal of 100%.
We have integrated human rights and child labour considerations into our core due diligence activities and increased field assessments in high-risk areas. This enables us to focus resources into hotspot areas and implement preventative measures such as safe spaces for children, supporting access education and helping farmers access mechanisation.
We are reviewing our grievance reporting mechanisms to improve follow up, monitoring and record keeping, to ensure grievances are addressed promptly, consistently, and transparently.
We continue to review our own operations and supply chain, to make positive changes. However, we cannot make the level of change required alone. We are active in a number of sector-wide initiatives and are collaborating with customers to help them mitigate their environmental impacts.
Child labour monitoring and remediation is set to be rolled out across our operations in Cameroon, in the first programme of its kind by a cocoa company.
Going to school during the summer holidays wouldn’t be most children’s idea of fun, but for 13 year-old Nurcan Sekiz, it means a safe space to play and not work.
Child labour in cocoa producing countries often stems from some really complex societal and economic challenges.
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