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Behind Chocolate Bars ?

Child labour in cocoa production

Cocoa is the main ingredient in chocolate, and cocoa growing is one of the many agriculture sectors where children work. The awareness of this was increased in 2000 due to media reports on child labour, slave labour and trafficking in cocoa production in West Africa.

The news that the luxury chocolate is produced, in part, under unacceptable conditions caused outrage and there were calls for swift action to eliminate the child labour in chocolate. The chocolate industry scrambled to address the problem as well as limit the damage to sales from negative publicity. The experience of ILO/IPEC, acting as an advisor, suggested that a broad partnership was needed, bringing together all the stakeholders, industry bodies, manufacturers, trade unions, consumer groups, NGOs and producers. The result was the signing of a protocol in 2001 which set up the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) the following year.

The grouping, organised as a foundation and based in Switzerland, has set itself the target of reaching a viable and credible monitoring and certification system by July 2005. The Initiative is addressing the issue of child labour in cocoa production but also taking into account the broader context of sustainability both in social and environmental terms. The slogan of the foundation is “promoting socially, economically and environmentally responsible cocoa-growing.” Survey results have indicated for example that both children and the environment are being damaged by the use of pesticides, often applied without protective equipment.

IPEC has played an important role in supporting the International Cocoa Initiative with advice, resources and statistical surveys. In addition, the mobilisation of so many different organisations around a single goal, has acted as a springboard for programmes of direct ILO assistance to get children in the cocoa industry back to school, often giving their parents the chance to work and earn a living. This programme, known as WACAP, (West Africa Cocoa and Commercial Agriculture Project to Combat Hazardous and Exploitative Child Labour), has a budget of over $6 million, funded largely by the US Department of Labour with a contribution from ICI, and has the following elements:

• awareness-raising across families and communities;
• capacity enhancement of farmers/producers, inspectors and workers;
• pilot interventions to remove children from work and get them into education or training
• projects to boost the income-generating capacities of families;
• child labour monitoring systems.

ILO/IPEC has underlined from the outset the importance of building long-term sustainability into projects to fight child labour. The intense scrutiny brought to bear by the media spotlight is crucial in getting the issue of child labour onto the agenda of decision-takers and policy-makers. But then the real work has to continue once the media circus has left town. In the cocoa industry, a solid foundation has been built for the elimination of child labour through global partnership. We all have a responsibility to help build a new future on this basis, a future where no child labour goes into the making of chocolate.