A/HRC/18/30 conditions. This could then provide an income for families based on the labour of adults in a relatively safe working environment. 103. For adults who continue to mine and quarry, Governments should also provide alternative livelihoods through which they can supplement the family income. This would increase the economic security of the families and diminish their need for child labour. A proven effective strategy in fighting child slavery is to promote the development of other activities which diversify the local economy and render it less dependent on this sector. 104. Given that some children working in this sector are doing so with their families, the family needs to be the main focus of work in this area. Work needs to be done with families to emphasize the high risks and dangers to which children are exposed. 105. Governments should provide incentives for companies to explore technologies allowing minerals to be traced to their source. This information could then help Governments to ascertain who produced the minerals and under what conditions (including use of child slavery). Governments can then monitor and prosecute those that use child slavery. 106. The Special Rapporteur notes that, although quarrying holds many of the same risks to children as mining, there are more programmes focused on mining than on quarrying and urges all actors to intervene to eliminate child slavery in quarrying. C. Corporate responsibility 107. Companies should comply with all applicable laws and respect human rights standards, particularly those on child labour and slavery-like practices. Businesses are required to comply with international agreements ratified by the country in which they operate and when they operate internationally. As proposed by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, companies, when conducting business with State or non-State entities and entities in its value chain, should either by action or omission: avoid causing or exacerbating adverse human rights impacts through their own activities, and address such impacts when they occur; and seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts (see report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, A/HRC/17/31, para 13 ff.). 108. Businesses should exercise due diligence and ensure that their use of natural resources does not result in the violation of the human rights of children. D. Protecting the human rights of children 109. In order to address other human rights violations that have an effect on the child, the Special Rapporteur recommends that Governments adopt measures that respect, protect and fulfil the rights of child as stipulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 22

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