Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society

Volume 13, 2002

Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting

Global Public Policy Networks and Child Labor in the Brazilian Shoe Industry
The Case of the Pro-Child Institute

A global network involving foreign governments, NGOs, and retailers has, since the mid 1990s, pressured Brazil’s export-oriented shoe industry to eradicate child labor. In response, a collaborative organization of shoe manufacturers in Franca, a center for men’s leather shoe production in Brazil, has adopted a variety of programs widely believed to have eliminated child labor in the affiliated firms. However, the lack of coordination between the leaders of this collaborative effort and the rest of the community leave open the possibility that the displaced young workers may have found even more hazardous jobs in non-affiliated shoe firms or in other industries.