Search
  1. Home
  2. West Africa
  3. Côte d’Ivoire

Premier condemns chocolate companies

    ABIDJAN

    Ivorian Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’guessan has accused international
    chocolate companies of abetting child labour in cocoa plantations in West Africa, the BBC reported on Friday. N’guessan said the multinationals should pay higher prices to farmers because the current low prices were driving them to use child workers.
    Cote d’Ivoire, the world’s leading cocoa producer, and other regional
    countries have become notorious in recent times for their use of under-aged labour. The case of the ‘Etinero’, a ship that docked in Cotonou, Benin, on 17 April carrying 43 West African children and adolescents, has heightened awareness of the unlawful practice.
    “Chocolate companies were only interested in their own profits”, BBC
    reported N’Guessan as saying.

    The Ivorian minister of agriculture, Alphonse Douaty and the minister of
    women and family, Henriette Lagou, travelled to London on Wednesday to discuss the issue with company executives, non-governmental and
    international organisations, and state officials.

    Many children from neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana are employed as labourers and domestics in Cote d’Ivoire. Hundreds of young Malians are reported to have gone back to their country following the signing by Cote d’Ivoire and Mali of an anti-trafficking agreement in September 2000.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

    Share this article

    Our ability to deliver compelling, field-based reporting on humanitarian crises rests on a few key principles: deep expertise, an unwavering commitment to amplifying affected voices, and a belief in the power of independent journalism to drive real change.

    We need your help to sustain and expand our work. Your donation will support our unique approach to journalism, helping fund everything from field-based investigations to the innovative storytelling that ensures marginalised voices are heard.

    Please consider joining our membership programme. Together, we can continue to make a meaningful impact on how the world responds to crises.

    Become a member of The New Humanitarian

    Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

    Join