Responsible sourcing
Checking for child labour.
Announced audits find almost nothing, because a site that has a problem prepares for the visit. Reducing this risk in Indonesian sourcing means understanding where the work actually happens, which is frequently not at the factory you audited.
Where the risk actually sits.
Rarely in the export factory, which is visible, audited and has customers asking questions. The risk sits upstream and outward.
Home-based and outworker production, common in craft, weaving and finishing. Work goes to households and household work includes children in a way nobody records.
Smallholder agriculture, where family farms involve family, and the line between helping and working is genuinely blurred.
Seasonal peaks, when capacity is short and work is subcontracted to whoever can take it.
What an audit can and cannot do.
An announced audit checks records and looks at the site on a day. It finds documentation gaps and it does not find a problem that was prepared for.
Unannounced audits are better and they still only cover the site you visit.
Worker interviews conducted privately, off site and in the local language, find more than a walk round. That is a specialist exercise rather than something an inspector does in passing.
None of it reaches a household two villages away doing finishing work.
What actually reduces the risk.
Knowing where the work happens. Ask directly whether any operation is subcontracted or sent to homes, and expect the answer to be yes in craft categories.
Paying and scheduling in a way that does not force subcontracting. Impossible deadlines and prices below cost are what push work into the informal chain.
Long relationships with fewer suppliers, because you cannot understand a chain you change every season.
Supporting the alternative rather than only prohibiting. A blanket ban on home working in a craft category moves the work rather than removing the children.
What to write into the contract.
A prohibition, in plain language, with the local legal age referenced rather than assumed.
A requirement to disclose subcontracting and home working, which is the clause that actually does work.
A right to visit any site involved in your production, including the ones you were not told about.
A remediation approach rather than only termination, because immediate termination on discovery usually harms the child.
Questions buyers ask.
Is a social audit enough?
It is a start and it is not sufficient on its own. An announced audit of an export factory tells you about the export factory, and in craft and agricultural chains the risk is usually somewhere else.
Should I ban home working?
In craft categories a blanket ban usually means the work continues and stops being disclosed. Requiring disclosure and visiting the sites is harder and it is the approach that actually sees the chain.
What do I do if I find something?
Not immediate termination as a first move, because that typically leaves the child worse off. Remediation with a plan and a timetable, with specialist advice, is what responsible programmes do.
Read next.
What social auditing can establish
What a social audit examines, what it cannot see, and why chain-wide claims need chain-wide evidence.
Why Indonesian chains have so many hands
Farms, collectors, mills, exporters. What that structure does to quality, price and traceability, and how to work with it.
What a factory audit can and cannot tell you
An audit is a snapshot of a place on a day. What that establishes, what it cannot reach, and how buyers over-read it.
What to look at on a factory visit
A day at a producer answers questions no document can. What to look for and the three things that tell you most.
Buying craft at scale
Handmade and consistent pull against each other. How to get volume without losing the point.
Sourcing from Indonesia?
Tell us the product, the quantity and the destination. We come back with what it involves before anyone talks about money.