International

Under pressure from the SP and the Christian Union, Secretary of State for Economic Affairs has promised to draw up a list of all products where there is a serious risk that child labour may have been used in their manufacture.

Commenting on the decision, SP Member of Parliament Sharon Gesthuizen said: “As things stand Dutch firms often simply don't know whether products which they are importing were produced in an honest fashion. We can't ask every small enterprise in the Netherlands which ever imports things from faraway countries to look into that for itself. So it's good that the government has agreed to produce a list.”

According to Gesthuizen the next step should be a complete exclusion of child labour from the chain of production. "If firms at least know what is happening in the chain of production, you can reasonably ask them to take action to improve things", she says.