Child labour is a recurring issue in cocoa production. Ivory Coast and Ghana together produce nearly 60% of the world's cocoa each year. During the 2018/19 cocoa-growing season, research commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago in these two countries and found that 1.48 million children are engaged in hazardous work on cocoa farms including working with sharp tools and agricultural chemicals and carrying heavy loads. The number of children is significant, representing 43 percent of all children living in agricultural households in cocoa-growing areas. During the same period cocoa production in Ivory Coast and Ghana increased 62 percent while the prevalence of child labour in cocoa production among all agricultural households increased by 14 percentage points. Attention on this subject has focused on West Africa, which collectively supplies 69% of the world's cocoa, and Côte d'Ivoire, supplying 35%, in particular.
The 2016 Global Estimates of Child Labor indicate that one-fifth of all African children are involved in child labour. Nine percent of African children are in hazardous work. It is estimated that more than 1.8 million children in West Africa are involved in growing cocoa. A 2013–14 survey commissioned by the Department of Labor and conducted by Tulane University found that an estimated 1.4 million children aged 5 years old to 11 years old worked in agriculture in cocoa-growing areas, while approximately 800,000 of them were engaged in hazardous work, including working with sharp tools and agricultural chemicals and carrying heavy loads. According to the NORC study, methodological differences between the 2018/9 survey and earlier ones, together with errors in the administration of the 2013/4 survey have made it challenging to document changes in the number of children engaged in child labour over the past five years.
A major study of the issue, published in Fortune magazine in the U.S. in March 2016, concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report was doubtful as to whether the situation can be improved significantly.
Child labor In 2001, the report A Taste of Slavery: How Your Chocolate May be Tainted won a George Polk Award. In it were claims that traffickers promised paid work, housing, and education to children who were forced to labour and undergo severe abuse, that some children were held forcibly on farms and worked up to 100 hours per week, and that attempted escapees were beaten. It quoted a former slave: "The beatings were a part of my life" and "when you didn't hurry, you were beaten."
A small observational study, published in 2005 and financed by USAID, examines the many health hazards of cocoa production in western Ghana.
In 2006, a study showed many children working on small farms in Côte d'Ivoire, often on family farms. Over 11,000 people working on small Ivorian cocoa farms were surveyed. A report funded by the U.S. Department of Labor concluded that "Industry and the Governments of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana have taken steps to investigate the problem and are implementing projects that address issues identified in the Protocol."
In 2008, in a report featuring responses from Cargill and Hershey's, Fortune magazine reported that "little progress has been made", and in June 2009, the OECD released a position paper on child labour on West African Cocoa Farms, and launched a website on its Regional Cocoa Initiative.
A major report released in 2015 by the Payson Center for International Development of Tulane University, funded by the United States Department of Labor, reported a 51% increase in the number of child workers (1.4 million) in the cocoa industry in 2013–14, compared to 2008–09. The report estimated that over 1.4 million children ages 5 years old to 11 years old were working in agriculture in cocoa-growing areas, approximately 800,000 of them engaged in hazardous work, including working with agricultural chemicals, carrying heavy loads, and working with sharp tools.
A study of the issue, published in Fortune magazine in the U.S. in March 2016, concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report suggested that it would be a persistent challenge to improve the situation:
Sona Ebai, the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries, said that eradicating child labour was an immense task and that the chocolate companies' newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities is not sufficient: "Best-case scenario, we're only doing 10% of what's needed. Getting that other 90% won't be easy. ... I think child labour cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, humane society, the private sector. And there, you really need leadership."
Reported in 2018, a three-year pilot program – conducted by Nestlé through the International Cocoa Initiative with 26,000 farmers mostly located in Côte d'Ivoire – observed a 51% decrease in the number of children doing hazardous jobs in cocoa farming. A separate sub-study conducted by NORC and commissioned by the World Cocoa Foundation in 2019, provides detailed results which demonstrate that hazardous child labour has been reduced by one-third in communities where company programs are in place.
The US Department of Labor formed the Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group as a public-private partnership with the governments of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire to address child labour practices in the cocoa industry. The International Cocoa Initiative involving major cocoa manufacturers established the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System intended to monitor thousands of farms in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire for child labour conditions. Despite these efforts, goals to reduce child labour in West Africa by 70% before 2020 are slowed by persistent poverty, absence of schools, expansion of cocoa farmland, and increased demand for coco.
In April 2018, the Cocoa Barometer 2018 report on the $100-billion industry, said this about the child labour situation: "Not a single company or government is anywhere near reaching the sectorwide objective of the elimination of child labour, and not even near their commitments of a 70% reduction of child labour by 2020". A report later that year by New Food Economy stated that the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems implemented by the International Cocoa Initiative and its partners has been useful, but "they are currently reaching less than 20 percent of the over two million children impacted". According to the 2018 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that's published by a consortium of nonprofits, the current farmer income is $.78.
Class action lawsuits in the US against companies in the cocoa industry have not achieved much success. In 2015, lawsuits against Mars, Nestlé, and Hershey's alleged that their products' packaging failed to disclose that production may involve child slave labour. All were dismissed in 2016, although the plaintiffs filed an appeal.
Nestlé's website, as paraphrased by Mother Jones magazine, states: The company said it had spent $5.5 million on the problem in 2016. Nestlé had also published a report in 2017 on child labour in the cocoa supply chain, Tackling Child Labour, with additional specifics as to their "approach to addressing this significant, complex and sensitive challenge".
In a press statement accompanying the release of the NORC report Kareem Kysia, Director of Vulnerable Populations Research at NORC and a lead author of the report, stated,As the overall production of cocoa increased dramatically, cocoa farming spread into areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana where infrastructure to monitor child labour was weak and awareness of laws regulating it was low. Interventions to stem hazardous child labour in the cocoa sector should target new, emerging areas of production and focus on efforts to reduce exposure to the component parts of hazardous child labour.
Income Income from the cocoa industry for small cocoa farmers is not stable because when the market price of cocoa is low, the price paid to each link in the industry decreases and cocoa farmers who produce raw products get very little in the chain. To keep the cost of cocoa low, cocoa farmers seek the cheapest labour to make a profit. In Africa, a cocoa labourer can only make less than 2 dollars per day, which is below the poverty line. , Kramer, Anna. 6 March 2013. "Women and the big business of chocolate". Child labourers between the ages of 12 and 15 in the cocoa industry work as much as an adult labourer, but they are paid less than adults., Hinshaw, Drew. 6 October 2010. "Governments Look to End Child Labor in West African Cocoa Farming." Voice of America. Children in cocoa growing areas face the realities of rural poverty (scarcity of land, food insecurity, lack of education infrastructure, access to potable water, poor health services, etc.). The regular practice of children working on cocoa farms is often a natural way of life for cocoa farmers who, for a variety of reasons, want to train their children and at the same time use them to reduce labour costs on the family's farm.
Child labour definition
The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines child labour as work that "is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; by obliging them to leave school prematurely; or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work." Not all work that children do is child labour. Work done that is not detrimental to children's health, development or schooling is beneficial because it allows children to develop skills, gain experience and prepare them for future positions; these are not considered child labour or abuse.
The forms of child labour related to cocoa production includes parents putting their children to work and keeping them out of school to reduce labour cost on family farms. Most children who work on cocoa farms do so within their family structure. However, this does not mean they are not exposed to hazards, and, beyond these situations, illegal and exploitative practices also exist. Studies suggest that in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire's cocoa sector roughly 1% of children in child labour could be in, or at risk of, forced labour.
The United Nations declared 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, and declared 5 September to be "Labour Day".
Child slavery and trafficking A 2000 BBC documentary described child slavery on commercial cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire. The documentary featured Kevin Bales, renowned author and professor, who later became the founding board member of the International Cocoa Initiative, a Geneva-based nonprofit funded by major chocolate makers that focuses on addressing child labour in cocoa production in West Africa. In 2001, the United States Department of State estimated there were 15,000 child slaves in cocoa, cotton, and coffee farms in Côte d'Ivoire, and the Chocolate Manufacturers Association acknowledged that children were used in the cocoa harvest of cocoa.