Boy by mica Photo: World Vision New Zealand
Cosmetic companies are hiding ugly truths about child labour practices, according to a new report from World Vision.
The report, 'The High Price of Beauty: Child labour in global cosmetics', claimed many beauty products are likely to contain ingredients gathered by children working in farms and mines for low or no wages.
World Vision New Zealand head of advocacy and justice Rebekah Armstrong told Kathryn Ryan that “a lack of transparency” about the origins of raw materials and the processes used to extract them, made it difficult for consumers to be assured that they were buying products free from child labour and slavery.
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Between 2019 and 2023, World Vision reviewed the practices of seven multi-national cosmetic companies that together hold more than 40 percent of the global market share. It estimated that 30 percent of ingredients used in cosmetics are derived from either mined or agricultural commodities. The growth of the ‘natural’ beauty industry has seen an increased demand for agricultural ingredients.
Armstrong said there were high levels of “the worst forms” of child labour used to extract agricultural or mining-based ingredients like shea butter, vanilla, palm oil, cocoa, mica and copper for use in cosmetics.
“All of our big cosmetic brands potentially use these raw materials, and if they don't have really strong tracing practices, there's a strong likelihood that there's child labour in their supply chains,” she said.
Photo: Joanna Kosinska/Unsplash
“Mica, in particular, is a kind of shiny material that we put in a lot of blushers and bronzers and that kind of thing. In that industry, very little children work to create mines, and then they mine the mica out of those mines. They're really risky when they are unregulated, so there was a real crackdown on mica a couple of years ago in 2016, around 12 children died in mine collapses.
“If you are a big cosmetic company, it's really important that you have those really strong supply chain practices in place where you can trace back the origin of your product, but also that you have really strong relationships with your suppliers so that you can be doing things like audits, or working with your suppliers to build labour practices. In some of these cases, companies walking away from mica and really impoverished regions has actually led to more child labour for example, because now it's illegal, unregulated and more dangerous.”
Armstrong said shoppers can check to see if brands they use source ingredients like mica responsibly, but it was not always straightforward. In 2022, New Zealand imported all its mica, worth nearly $300,000, from China.
“But then we know that China is a large re-exporter of mica from India. So you can see how, without this kind of strong disclosure of modern slavery legislation, it's really tricky to understand what products that you might be using that are associated with modern slavery.”
Palm oil, which is used in moisturisers and a long list of other items, is another problematic product. Armstrong said more than 80 percent of palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, where children as young as five are used to clear the land with fires and transport the palm kernels, which may have been treated with pesticides.
A palm oil farmer loading palm oil seeds onto a truck in Kampar, Riau province, Indonesia, in 2018. Photo: AFP / Wahyudi
“New Zealand imports 99 percent of its palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia, and we imported $726 million of palm oil last year.
“Palm oil is used in absolutely everything, it's a really amazing kind of lubricant. There are over 200 names of ingredients derived from palm oil, which makes it really difficult to identify that palm oil is involved. For example, sodium sulfite, glycerol, stearic acid, they're all ingredients made up of palm oil, but when you're reading the back of something that you've purchased, it's not going to say palm oil so it can be a little bit deceptive sometimes.”
Makeup is big business – in 2022, New Zealand imported nearly $370 million worth of cosmetics. Armstrong said most New Zealand companies did not say where their ingredients come from, or whether they are child labour-free.
“We looked at a desk review of New Zealand companies, and we couldn't find that any of them were really disclosing where their products were coming from that were making up their cosmetics.
“That lack of transparency… just exacerbates this problem. I think some people today when they hear about this report will go ‘oh my goodness, I had no idea that these products were potentially so dangerous for children. And I can't believe that I'm using them.”
Armstrong said World Vision was trying not to ‘name and shame’, in the hope that companies will come forward and disclose their risks.
“You can see that brands like L'Oreal, Lancome, they have disclosed what raw materials [they're] using and some of them sign up to particular initiatives like Responsible Mica, for example.
“We want to disclose the raw materials and the issues with child labour and stay away from calling out those brands because consumers can actually do their own research and look up those brands themselves and find whether they have responsible practices or not."
The modern slavery legislation announced by the government last week would mean that companies would have to understand where slavery risks are and identify those and publicly report on them. Under this legislation, companies who make more than $20 million a year needed to publicly report on how they are minimising exploitation.
Armstrong said the legislation needed to be delivered urgently and include due diligence and “take action” requirements. Including due diligence would have a “tangible impact” on those trapped in slavery, she said.