Yuka Iwatsuki

Yuka Iwatsuki, president and founder of Action against Child Exploitation (ACE), engages in various activities including advocacy and seminars for engaging citizens, corporations and organizations in ending child labor around the world.

Acting as secretary general of STOP! Child Labor Network Japan, more than 1.6 million signatures were collected to support ending child labor. ACE has field projects of child labor in Ghana and India, and has rescued more than 1,200 children, providing education in each of its project communities. For its unique approach in involving corporations in this cause, ACE has won a category of the Partnership Award and has been nominated as finalist for Nikkei Social Initiative Award. ACE was also a nominee for the Iqbal Masih Award by the U.S. Department of Labor.

In advocacy, Yuka led the Tanzaku campaign team, which collected 711,211 citizen testimonials on global issues, to present to the Japanese prime minister at the Japan G8 Summit. Yuka served as a member of the Japanese National Preparatory Committee for Rio+20, and the Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Social Responsibility for a Sustainable Future. She is a lecturer at Obirin University, and was, until recently, a board member for the Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation.