ACE's Blog

As of October 24th, 2022, ACE became a full member of the Voice network, a network of civil society organizations working for the realization of a sustainable cocoa farming and industry. With a secretariat based in the Netherlands, the global network consists of 22 civil society organizations and trade associations (as of October 2022) that work in regions and countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Africa. The Voice network aims to address the challenges facing

Aim of the study From October 2020 to June 2022, ACE conducted the study project, “Data Collection Survey on Child Labour and Support for Child Labour Free Zone Pilot Activities with a Focus on the Cocoa Region in the Republic of Ghana”, commissioned by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The project aim was to investigate global trends in child labour, interventions to eliminate child labour implemented in Ghana, and trends in initiatives by stakeholders of th

Hello everyone! Thank you very much for your warm support for ACE's activities. This is Kondo, a staff in charge of Ghana. In this blog, we will tell you about “Community Register”, which is very important for understanding the actual situation of child labour. In Ghana, guidelines for the creation of government-certified "Child Labour Free Zone" (CLFZ) have been established, and ACE has been involved in their development. The guidelines were completed in 2020, and ACE then a

We would like to kindly invite you to a webinar on child labour in agriculture in Africa organized by FAO on October 3, 2022. Tomoko Shiroki, Vice President/Co-founder of ACE, will be speaking at the FAO webinar on October 3, 2022. The webinar includes two workshops that share lessons learned from research and past interventions. In the session "AUC Breakout Group: Identify priority actions in support of the Regional Action Plan for the Elimination of Child Labour and Forced

Hello everyone. Thank you very much for your warm support for ACE's activities. ACE, together with its local partner organization SPEED, is conducting the "PEACE India Project" in a cotton-producing rural area in Telangana State, India, to protect children from child labour and support their education. Children at increased risk of child labour due to the loss of education The spread of the new coronavirus has resulted in the loss of educational opportunities not only for chi

The Tokyo Marathon 2023 will be held on March 5th, 2023, and charity runner applications period will end on July 24, 2022. If you are interested in running the Tokyo Marathon through the charity runner program, please consider choosing ACE as the charity that your run will support. ACE is dedicated to the elimination of all forms of child exploitation and to creating happy childhoods and brighter futures for children around the world. For information on how to apply, please

Hello everyone! Thank you very much for your warm support for ACE's activities. My name is Yuki Akahori, a staff member in charge of Ghana. The Smile Ghana Project provides free school supplies and uniforms to children from economically disadvantaged families who are at high risk of engaging in child labor. In this report, we report on the children and their families who received the school supplies last June (2021) and what has happened since then. The conditions of the fami

The 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour was organized by the Republic of South Africa, ILO and Alliance 8.7 in Durban between the 15th and 20th of May 2022. ACE co-organized an online side event, “Promoting an Integrated Area-based Approach to the Elimination of Child Labour: A Case of the Child Labour Free Zone in Ghana”, on May 19, and participated in many sessions online despite the time difference. This blog post includes: ◆Outline of the Conference ◆

The 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour is held in Durban, South Africa, from 15 to 20 May 2022. During the conference, ACE co-organises a side event with JICA and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, the Government of Ghana. This side event intends to facilitate learning and discussion on the possibilities of the area-based approach as a solution to eliminate child labour particularly in countries where child labour is prevalent in agricultur

We are a Japanese NGO active in international advocacy to protect children from exploitation across the globe. ACE aims to transform the world into a place where all children and youths are free to shape their own lives and capable of building a society that they want to live in.　Ending child labour is one of our core strategic goals.　We believe that achieving this goal in the long-term requires addressing every level of the global supply chain. As such, we operate through in

2021 is the UN's International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour. While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to overshadow other crises and issues, it serves to demonstrate the interconnected nature of social problems and consequently the need for collective and international responses. The ever-persistent prevalence of child labour, which has u-turned with numbers of child labourers rising since the pandemic began, is a good starting point. On Wednesday, March 17th

On Friday October 9th, ACE held a panel session for the C20 Summit 2020 on, “Promoting CSO-Business-Government Collaboration in the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour towards the Achievement of SDG 8.7”. Each experienced panellist brought to the table an innovative case study of collaboration from the three sectors, and from four corners of the globe. The C20 Summit 2020 was held in Saudi Arabia last month between October 6th-10th. The annual summit pro

ACE won the Special Award category for our holistic approach to the long-term elimination of child labour, including supporting the quality education of children in India and Ghana, providing income generation support to low-income families, investigating human rights violations in supply chains, and promoting corporate social responsibility. The Japan Times’s Satoyama & ESG Awards are given to corporations, organisations and individuals who have made significant contributio

On 9th March 2020, the new Child Labour Free Zone system (CLFZ-system) came into effect in Ghana. It will be used to monitor, verify and certify that areas have eliminated child labour and have the mechanisms in place to continue to protect children from hazardous work, while also safeguarding other fundamental children’s rights. Eligible areas will be assessed and, if successful, certified as a "Child Labour Free Zone" ; cacao production areas are currently the main targets

Hi there, this is Yuka Tayanagi, ACE's India Project Manager. I wanted to give everyone an update on the current situation in our community projects, in a country particularly hard-hit by the outbreak of the Corona virus. As of August 17th, there were 2,640,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and number of deaths has exceeded 50,000. There is a lot of fear that infections will continue to spread to more local villages. We obviously have not been able to visit the project areas in th

A look back on how our PEACE India operation's impact long after project completion to fulfil its goal to ensure the long-term elimination of child labour ACE'S PEACE India Project aims to eliminate child labour and support children's quality education in the cotton production areas of ​​India, specifically in Telangana state where approximately 480,000 child labourers work in the cotton fields. “I want to send my own kids to school, not to work” ACE has been implementing it

Japan hosted a G20 Summit meeting for the first time in Osaka on June 28 and 29, 2019. ACE took this opportunity to conduct a series of advocacy activities for over a year. Please find a report on the activities below. The result was what we had expected: G20 showed their commitments to the elimination of child labour in the Leaders’ Declaration and the Ministerial Declaration of Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meeting. Policy recommendations from the Civil 20 (C20) As a mem