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S U S TA I NAB I L I T Y R E PORT 2 0 1 2
7.4 Child Labour
The key activities of MYTILINEOS Group
take place in the territory of Greece.
The Greek legislation in force includes
a number of legislative initiatives to
protect the employment of minors,
such as: The ratification of the UNICEF
Convention on the Rights of the Child
(Law 2101/1992), on the definition of
child labour; the ratification of the Con-
vention182 of the International Labour
Organisation (ILO) concerning the pro-
hibition and immediate action for the
elimination of the worst forms of
child labour (Law 2918/0011); the
adoption of Law 1837/1989 on the
protection of minors from employ-
ment, which includes an article on the
protection of employed minors under
Law 3144/2003 (“Social dialogue for
the promotion of employment and so-
cial protection”), as well as a reference
to minors who are victims of human
trafficking under the relevant Law
3064/2002.
However, despite the rigorous ap-
proach of the abovementioned laws,
their enforcement in practice faces sig-
nificant difficulty. The major hindrance
that dampens the effectiveness of
their enforcement are the long delays
in the procedure for the hearing of rel-
evant cases by the Courts, which
varies from one to two years at the very
least. As a result, employed minors in
Greece are left exposed to all kinds of
exploitation and pressures. The figures
on child labour in Greece, which NGOs
and International Organisations re-
lease based on an growing corpus of
evidence, paint a disheartening picture.
In this context, as a responsible cor-
porate citizen, we recognise our share
of the responsibility to play a part in the
efforts to limit this phenomenon and
we are committed to the principles of
the UN Global Compact which refer to
the effective abolition of child labour.
We also declare that we oppose the
unlawful use of child labour and the ex-
ploitation of children. Furthermore, it
is our standing policy to carry out pri-
or checks and to refuse to enter into
an association with any supplier or con-
tractor known to operate using un-
lawful practices that encourage, con-
done or cover up incidents of child
labour.
In addition, the risk of occurrence of in-
cidents of child labour is also ad-
dressed by the rigorous personnel se-
lection procedure that our Group
companies have in place. The Human
Resources Divisions of all our compa-
nies monitor closely all such occur-
rences and take appropriate action as
required, in consultation with the Top
Management of the respective Group
company and in collaboration with the
Executives of the company’s Manage-
ment hierarchy and the representatives
of employee unions, where these ex-
ist.
Through our subsidiary METKA S.A.,
active in construction and EPC Projects,
we operate business units in geo-
graphical regions which are considered
to present a higher risk of occurrence
of incidents involving child labour. In
these specific regions, METKA S.A.
takes all necessary steps to ensure com-
pliance with the provisions of the
laws prohibiting child labour, by means
of its internal regulations and Profes-
sional Ethics Code, which reflect the
business ethics and values that apply
to all employees. In parallel, the com-
pany requires its Managers and Senior
Executives to undertake a binding
commitment to adopt fully and defend
these principles and to adhere to the
applicable legal framework, while all
the contracts and agreements that the
company concludes with its business
partners contain clauses on the manda-
tory compliance with the applicable na-
tional laws, rules and regulations, in or-
der to rule out all likelihood of incidents
involving child labour or the employ-
ment of young contracted personnel
in hazardous work. Finally, during
2012 no reports were made of inci-
dents of child labour in the Group com-
panies and in their principal associates.
