Target 16.2: End abuse, exploitation, trafficking, violence against children
End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Two corporate channels matter. The first is online platforms and telecom providers that host or transmit child sexual abuse material. The second is consumer-goods supply chains, where 160 million children worldwide were in child labor in 2020, 70 percent of them in agriculture. Shareholder voting is already the main private lever on the platform side. Proxy Impact reports that four of its five child sexual exploitation resolutions at Meta received a majority of the non-management-controlled vote. Its 2019 Verizon proposal drew 34 percent support representing more than 50 billion dollars in stock. Company control of detection, reporting and supplier standards makes owner pressure a necessary input. But most abuse, trafficking and violence against children occurs offline, in homes, schools and conflict settings where governments, courts and social services are decisive. Platform lobbying is a contributor rather than what blocks progress. Owners supply a necessary input on the online-abuse and supply-chain components, and governments must act on the rest.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Child Sexual Exploitation, Proxy Impact, 2025
- Verizon Shareholders Show Strong Support for Increased Efforts to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation Online, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2019-05-02
- Child labour rises to 160 million, first increase in two decades, UNICEF and ILO, 2021-06-10
4 campaigns on record
The resolution asked Meta's board to adopt measurable, one-year targets for reducing dangers to children on its platforms, track quantitative metrics on progress, and publish both in an annual report so investors could hold the company to them.
With members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Result: Support climbed each year among independent (non-Zuckerberg-controlled) shares: 53.8 percent in 2023 and 59.1 percent in 2024, according to Proxy Impact's own tally; the 2024 filing also won recommendations to vote yes from proxy advisors ISS and Glass Lewis. The resolution was refiled again in 2025.
Proxy Impact and As You Sow both describe Meta as having resisted the reforms the resolutions called for; we found no documented instance of Meta publishing the requested annual child-safety metrics report as of the sources reviewed.
Asked Tesla's board to report on whether and how it would eliminate child labor and forced labor, including cobalt mining risk in the Democratic Republic of Congo and concerns about Uyghur forced labor in China, from its supply chain by 2025, and to increase supply-chain transparency.
Result: Per Tesla's own SEC Form 8-K, the proposal received 0 votes for and 2,420,047,519 votes against (100% against). This was a 'floor' proposal not included in Tesla's advance proxy materials or on shareholders' proxy ballots, which is why the recorded 'for' vote was zero.
Despite the zero-vote outcome, CEO Elon Musk publicly committed at the meeting to third-party audits of Tesla's cobalt supply chain ('we will conduct a third-party audit... we'll put a webcam on the mine'). As of a July 2024 Forbes report, the follow-through fell short of that promise: Tesla's main cobalt supplier posted only a single low-resolution monthly satellite photo of the mine rather than live monitoring, and while Tesla said four scheduled (not surprise) audits found no child labor in 2023, an expert said this did not address the risk that cobalt from an estimated 40,000 children working in unregulated artisanal mines gets mixed into the supply chain before reaching Tesla's suppliers.
Tesla Inc. Form 8-K (annual meeting voting results), SEC EDGAR
The resolution asked Meta to report on how its plan to roll out end-to-end encryption across its messaging products would affect its ability to detect and stop child sexual exploitation on the platform.
With members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Result: By Proxy Impact's own tally: 2020 drew 12.6 percent overall support (43 percent of independent shares); 2021 drew 17.25 percent overall (56 percent of independent shares); 2022 drew 17.3 percent overall (56.7 percent of independent shares).
Proxy Impact reports that Meta continued rolling out end-to-end encryption without publishing the requested report and, according to Proxy Impact, was slow to engage, sometimes taking 12 to 18 months to schedule a call with proponents.
The resolution asked Verizon to show it was properly assessing the risk that child sexual exploitation material could move through its own services, including email, digital advertising, wireless data, and cloud storage.
With Maryknoll Sisters, Benedictine Sisters of Virginia, Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, New Jersey
Result: The resolution received 34 percent of the shareholder vote, representing more than 50 billion dollars in stock.
We found no documented change Verizon made as a result of this vote in the sources reviewed.
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.