The Fight Against Child Labor Is Surviving the ESG Backlash
Activists are zeroing in on the most promising targets, including sovereign wealth and pension funds.
Fernando Morales-de la Cruz in Davos, Switzerland.
Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
Fernando Morales-de la Cruz was plying his trade: shaming the wealthy for investments in companies he claims benefit from child labor. Wearing a hoodie and baggy jeans, the 63-year-old Guatemalan activist looked out of place in January at the annual Davos conference, a gathering that’s synonymous with prestige and power.
He was targeting Klaus Schwab, the German economist and engineer who oversees Davos as founder of the World Economic Forum, which is funded by 1,000 of the world’s biggest corporations. Morales-de la Cruz plastered the posh Swiss mountain resort with a caricature of the usually elegant Schwab. In the cartoon, Schwab’s head is ungainly and large, with giant corks in his ears to block out a woman’s anguished cries. “I’m trying to move dinosaurs in the right direction,” Morales-de la Cruz says. (The forum and Schwab didn’t respond to requests for comment.)