[ 2011-11-13 ]

Ivory Coast (West Africa) cocoa farms child labour: Little change
Global chocolate companies have been told they
have a moral responsibility to do more to stop
children working on cocoa farms in West Africa.

A recent report commissioned by the US government
found that more than 1.8 million children in West
Africa were involved in growing cocoa.

Many were at risk of being injured by machetes,
pesticides or through other hazards.

The Ivory Coast exports nearly half the world's
cocoa. After years of civil war, the new
government says ending poverty and child labour is
a priority and the chocolate industry must be
involved.

"There is a moral obligation," said Gilbert Kone
Kafana, minister for labour and social affairs.

"The chocolate companies have a duty to engage
with us. We need to build roads, schools,
hospitals and social centres; anything that would
allow Ivory Coast to progress.

"This development is necessary for farmers to have
a good life, and it is in the interest of the
industry to work with us."

The chocolate industry is worth more than $90m
(£56.5m) a year, and more than 40% of people in
the Ivory Coast live below the poverty line.

Ten years ago, under international pressure,
chocolate companies signed an international
protocol to stop the practice of dangerous child
labour. They promised to "commit significant
resources" and act "as a matter of urgency."


Cocoa is the raw ingredient for chocolate and one
of West Africa's main exports
But the report by Tulane University in the US,
found that the chocolate industry's funding since
2001 had "not been sufficient" and it needed to do
more.

Scarring work
The sight of children carrying machetes or
pesticide equipment is common throughout Ivory
Coast's cocoa belt.

More than 800,000 children here are believed to do
some form of cocoa-related work.

I found a group walking along a muddy path towards
trees where bright yellow cocoa pods hung ready
for harvest.

Silently, the children squatted down and started
work.

My father sent me here to work... I haven't seen
my family for three years”

Yoa Kouassi
Child labourer on a cocoa farm
They wore torn and grubby shorts and T-shirts.
There was no laughter or play.

On their legs were scars from machete injuries.
There was no first aid kit around or any
protective clothing.

In one hand they held a cocoa pod. With the other
they hacked it open with a machete, then prized
out the beans.

Under the present system, once sold to market, it
is impossible to trace exactly where the beans
came from - and whether or not young children are
being forced to work to produce them.

One of the children was Kuadio Kouako who said he
was 12 and whose home was more than 320km (200
miles) away.

At first, the farm's owner insisted that three of
the boys were his sons and that two belonged to a
friend. But when I asked for their names, he
hesitated - then left.

"I was living in Bouake with my grandmother," Yao
Kouassi said. "But my father sent me here to work.
I haven't seen my family for three years."

Yao's story is depressingly familiar among
children trafficked or sent away from their
families and kept out of school and working for no
money.


International chocolate companies say they are
committed to ending child labour
The chocolate industry has sponsored some projects
such as in the village of Campement Paul, near the
city of San Pedro. In 2008 a small school was
built, for which the villagers had to pay half of
the $20,000 (£12,570) costs.

It can accommodate about 150 children. But the
villagers say that another 400 in the community
still have no school to go to.

One child who has benefited is Dera, now 15. When
the school opened, his father took him off cocoa
work so he could learn to read and write.

"You get very tired when you work so much," he
said, showing scars he still has from his machete
injuries. "Every day I would wake at six o'clock
and go straight to the cocoa farm."

The chocolate industry concedes that more needs to
be done, but says that even since 2009 its
programmes have helped hundreds of thousands of
cocoa farming families and more than one million
children.

New targets
Company executives refuse to speak on this issue
and refer queries to public relations consultant
Joanna Scott.

"Far too many children are in the worst forms of
child labour and that is unacceptable to us," she
says. "No child should ever be harmed in the
growing and harvesting of cocoa and that is why we
are totally committed to work with others in
resolving the situation."


Child workers - including those working with
pesticides - often have no protective equipment
Last year, under continuing pressure, the
chocolate industry signed another agreement - this
time to cut by 70% the number of children working
in dangerous conditions by 2020.

There is, though, some difference over the
figures.

The US study found that between 2001 and 2009,
less than 4% of people in Ivory Coast's
cocoa-growing communities had been helped by the
industry's programmes, and about 33,000 children.

The chocolate companies say they have done much
more.

But the US Department of Labor, a signatory to the
new agreement, backs the Tulane report, saying its
figures are "credible and reliable".

If that is the case, even if the 2020 target is
achieved, almost a quarter of a million children
would still be at risk, harvesting cocoa for
global chocolate companies.

Source - BBC

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