Zain Group has been ranked the regional Leader in the Global Child Forum’s The State of Children’s Rights and Business 2025 Benchmark for the third year in a row, maintaining its position as the top-performing company in the Middle East and Africa on children’s rights. The announcement coincides with World Children’s Day on November 20. Zain improved its already high score from 8.4/10 in 2024 to 8.5 in 2025—well above the telecom sector average of 6.5 and the regional average of just 3.4.
Founded by the Swedish Royal Family, Global Child Forum assesses over 1,800 global companies annually across 25 indicators in areas such as governance, sustainability, human rights, and child protection. Zain ranked 10/10 in Governance & Collaboration, achieving perfect scores across multiple areas including standards and frameworks, board accountability, grievance mechanisms, NGO partnerships, protection from child labor, family-friendly workplace policies, marketing ethics, environmental responsibility, and community engagement.
Jennifer Suleiman, Zain Group Chief Sustainability Officer, emphasized that online safety is a core priority, noting that one in three internet users worldwide is a child. She reaffirmed Zain’s commitment to supporting SDG 16.2, which calls for ending violence against children by 2030.
Ekin Bjorstedt, Secretary General of Global Child Forum, praised Zain for demonstrating scalable, value-chain-wide leadership in children’s rights, adding that true leadership requires moving beyond policy commitments into implementation, monitoring, and transparent reporting.
Zain’s achievement reflects its strong governance frameworks, ethical labor and supply-chain practices, and a family-friendly workplace that includes progressive parental leave policies. The company prohibits child labor across its operations and supply chain, requires ILO-compliant labor standards from suppliers, and enforces robust due-diligence and audit processes.
The company also champions child protection in the digital environment. Its Data Protection Policy explicitly restricts the processing of children’s personal data without guardian consent, while its Responsible Marketing and Communications Standard ensures ethical, inclusive, and age-appropriate messaging.
Zain further supports child rights through multi-country partnerships, including a three-year MoU with Child Helpline International to strengthen child protection services across its markets. Employees, partners, and communities can raise concerns through multiple internal and external reporting channels, including Zain’s Whistleblower Policy.
