Child labour to be combated in cocoa regions

Pilot programmes against abusive child and forced labour in West Africa’s cocoa industry are to be launched in September, in accordance with a memorandum of cooperation signed between stakeholders in the cocoa and chocolate industry.

The Chocolate Manufacturers Association (CMA) reported on Wednesday that West Africa produces nearly 70 percent of the world’s cocoa. Cote d’Ivoire is the world largest producer followed by Ghana. Other key producers are Nigeria and Cameroon, CMA said in Washington, DC.

"The programmes will focus on workplace conditions, trafficking and migration, social protection and education, strengthening community organisations, technology transfer, trade and information systems to help farmers improve quality and yields," Larry Graham, the president of CMA, said.

CMA partially sponsored an ongoing study by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria, to determine the extent and nature of abusive child labour practises in cocoa-growing areas of West Africa. It collaborated with the governments of Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria, and various organisations including the International Labour Organization and the United States Agency for International Development.

Humanitarian organisations say thousands of children are exploited as labourers in plantations. Save the Children-Canada, estimated in 2000, that 15,000 Malian children worked in "virtual slavery" on plantations in the Cote d’Ivoire.

"They come from Mali. They're between 10 and 17 years old (and were) sold into slavery across the border for US $45 each. After picking cocoa, cotton or coffee for twelve hours a day, they were locked up in squalid conditions, often abused and denied proper food and medical care. For many, death or escape offered the only release," the NGO said.

Save the Children-Canada, in March launched a "Positive chocolate" campaign to raise awareness, about child trafficking for labour in the cocoa industry.

"Today in West Africa, children as young as nine are toiling in appalling and hazardous conditions on cocoa farms often, with only enough food to keep them barely alive. They live a world where the whip is king and the cost of being caught running away can end in having the soles of their feet cut with razors," the NGO said.

Several other initiatives have been launched to combat child labour in the cocoa industry. Cote d’Ivoire and Mali signed in 2000 a protocol against the practice. A regional convention against it is planned in 2004.