The organization Desarrollo y Autogestión (DYA) has been working for the last 30 years on actions that favour health, education, productive development and child labour in communities and community organizations in Argentina, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. While the Argentinean Blueberry Committee (ABC) was created as a civil association representing the core of blueberry exporters in that country, it aims to bring private enterprises together as part of the Red de Empresas Contra el Trabajo Infantil Arándanos (Network of Companies Against Child Labour in the Blueberry Industry), a public-private space working to guarantee that child labour is not used in the cultivation of these crops.

The year 2021 was designated as the international year for the elimination of child labour, an opportunity that encouraged these two organizations to join forces to contribute to their common goal. This is reflected in the Producción Agrícola Responsable (Responsible Agricultural Production – PAR) project: as part of the PAR project, a social compliance system was designed as a voluntary mechanism that enterprises, cooperatives and productive sectors can adhere to with the support of the State. 

Anyone who wishes to take advantage of the project should read the information and follow the steps below:

• The enterprise expresses interest, joins the compliance system and signs an agreement.
• Training and a toolkit are provided. For example, this might include a contract with a clause prohibiting child labour. 
• Staff and the contracting enterprise are trained.
• There is the possibility of using a random monitoring app that provides the batch to be monitored each day, with the documents to request, age verification, registration in the database, and so on.
• There is also a person who carries out transport controls and checks who enters the workplace. 
• It explains how to act in case of an incident or attempt to use child labour. Depending on the location, there is contact with local authorities.
• Finally, work is done to strengthen the community network by providing health services, protection of children’s rights, childcare services and training sessions. 

To support this project and learn more about the work of DYA and ABC you can visit their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.