Ace Action Against Child Exploitation

Side event at 5th Global Conference of Elimination of Child Labour (2022) Action against Child Exploitation (ACE) is a Japanese NGO/NPO est. 1997 that addresses social issues that deprive children and young people of their rights; eliminating child labour is one of our core strategic goals. We work with stakeholders throughout global supply chains from farmer to consumer as we believe the sustainable elimination of child labour requires systemic change. Our international work is centred on our children's rights community development projects in the cacao sector in Ghana, where there are approximately 770 child labourers, and the cotton sector in India, with approximately 480 child labourers. These projects aim to empower both children and their communities to create child labour-free villages that continue to protect children's right following project completion. We work with local NGOs to withdraw children from labour and ensure their access to quality education, support vulnerable households through financial management/ business training and micro-loans, and establish sufficient mechanisms to monitor for and remediate child labour. We also engage in international advocacy to ensure children's rights remain a top priority in national-level policy and in 2017 we obtained the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Special Consultative Status. In Japan, we provide consultation services to corporations and collaborate with chocolate and cotton companies to support the elimination of child labour in their supply chains, while also promoting the industries as a whole toward ethical sourcing. For our children rights project in Japan we focus on raising awareness of issues that children in Japan face such as bullying and mental health, as well as forms of child labour found in Japan such as sexual exploitation.