APPENDIX 3
Auditors’ Insights from Vietnam: A Run-Down of a Typical Remediation
APPENDIX 3
Auditors’ Insights from Vietnam: A Run-Down of a Typical Remediation
Disclaimer: The following story is based on an in-depth interview CCR CSR conducted with a senior auditor in Vietnam. In order to protect her identity, an alias was used throughout the story. The views presented in this article are based on the interview transcripts and do not necessarily reflect the views of CCR CSR.
Just recently, Ms. Ngo( pseudonym), a female senior auditor from Vietnam, discovered a child laborer in a factory west of Ho Chi Minh. The child looked suspiciously young so Ms. Ngo asked to see his personnel file, which he couldn’ t provide because he was under the age of 18. In order to verify his age, Ms. Ngo asked him whether any other family member works at the factory. As it turned out, his mother was also employed there. From that piece of information, Ms. Ngo was able to access the mother’ s personnel file and household registration book, which stated the child’ s age. Upon confirming the presence of the child laborer, the client’ s standard child labor response procedure kicked in:
“ I filed the child labor report, immediately stopped the auditing procedure and started reviewing 100 % of the personnel files( or 50 % depending on the staff number) to see whether they have historical child labor alerts.”
As part of the procedure, Ms. Ngo had to interview the mother to find out the reasons for bringing the child along to the factory, as well as workers to determine whether or not this was an isolated case.
A remediation process followed but Ms. Ngo was not involved. The client sent someone to the factory to verify Ms. Ngo’ s claims and to carry out the remediation. Ms. Ngo can only rely on hearsay to tell us how she thinks the remediation process was carried out:
“ I heard they will interview the child laborer’ s parents and ask what is the expectation of the child laborer. If the child laborer says he / she wants to go back to school, they will send him / her back to school to continue their education. If the child laborer wants to learn something in the factory to lay foundation for their future, they will send the child laborer to vocation school and calculate the cost. However, I think if the factory pays the tuition to the child laborer’ s parents directly, they will spend the money. The money should be paid to the vocational school directly. The factory should pay all costs of the remediation, otherwise, the factory will continue to violate the policy and hire children.”
Unlike some other auditors whom we interviewed, Ms. Ngo actually follows up on the remediation case.“ When I do follow up on an audit, firstly I will complete the standard procedure, then I will interview the parents and ask what happened after the discovery. They will tell me about the remediation plan and I will interview the team leader of the child laborer,” she tells us.
But despite the access to parents for interviews, she often encounters obstacles when it comes to learning the truth.
“ Sometimes, the factory will teach the parents what to tell us. Therefore I need to verify the information from different sources, such as from the frontline workers, team leaders, coworkers and surrounding people, to see whether the factory has kept hiring child laborers.”
29 Best Response: Auditors’ Insights on Child Labor in Asia 28