Tag: child labor

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Today is World Day Against Child Labor

We are less than a week away from the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the International Labor Organization’s Convention 182–CONVENTION CONCERNING THE PROHIBITION AND IMMEDIATE ACTION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOUR. That convention codified in unmistakable terms what kind of work is impermissible for children under any circumstances.

Article 3

For the purposes of this Convention, the term “the worst forms of child labour” comprises:

  1. all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;
  2. the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;
  3. the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;
  4. work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

The International Labor Rights Fund reminds us that despite the convention, the worst forms of child labor are still rampant throughout the world. The World Day Against Child Labor is intended to reinforce our commitment to work for an abolition of these forms of child labor. Although the cocoa sector is not the only sector where such forms of child labor still exist, the focus of this blog is on cocoa. So check out the ILRF’s child labor awareness poster for cocoa. Print it and hang it up.

There are also excellent educational resources for classroom activities. And, if, like me, you like chocolate, here’s a scorecard to help you evaluate the supply chains of various chocolate companies.

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ILRF Begins a New Chocolate Campaign

The International Labor Rights Fund began a new letter writing campaign to protest the use of child labor in the cocoa sector. The letters ask the CEOs of Hershey, Mars and Nestlé about their concrete efforts to limit the use of child labor on cocoa farms in West Africa. The campaign aims to end the aura of secrecy and the lack of accountability surrounding the manner in which the Harkin-Engel Protocol has been implemented. Go to the website and send a letter yourself.

And just in time for Valentine’s Day, the ILRF produced a new scorecard to help you understand your choices when it comes to buying chocolate. The scorecard rates companies as either bitter, semi-sweet and sweet depending on their record regarding labor issues. There are few surprises. As I pointed out, buying fair-trade chocolate is the surest way to ensure that child labor was not used during the production of cocoa. But the semi-sweet group shows that it is possible for conventional companies to do some things right.

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Child Labor in West Africa: Roads not taken – Part 2

The emergence of the child labor issue in West African cocoa economies coincided with the historical low of cocoa prices at the end of the 1990s. While there are other factors that contribute to child labor, poverty is a significant part of the problem. Yes, there are cultural predispositions, but they are not sufficient in explaining the entire phenomenon, especially in light of alternatives for children, i.e., schooling. So dealing with child labor means addressing poverty. There is no way around that. Continue reading “Child Labor in West Africa: Roads not taken – Part 2”

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Child Labor in West Africa: Roads not taken – Part 1

This is the first of two posts that address what could have been done regarding child labor in West Africa. The first covers the efforts of the International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour. 

In 1999, the ILO convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour helped focus attention on those aspects of child labor that were most abhorrent. Shortly thereafter the first reports about child labor in the West African cocoa sector emerged. No wonder then, that IPEC has something to say about the problem. Its director, Frans Roselaers, even witnessed the Harkin-Engel Protocol with his signature. 

In 2002, IPEC began its Programme to Combat Hazardous and Exploitative Child Labour in Cocoa/Commercial Agriculture in West Africa (WACAP) with $5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Labor and $1 million from the International Confectionary Association. By its end in 2005, WACAP had created working pilot programs in Cameroon, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Guinea. Let’s look at the Ghanian program, one of the more successful ones. Continue reading “Child Labor in West Africa: Roads not taken – Part 1”

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The Harkin-Engel Protocol – Part 3

In yesterday’s post, I outlined how the industry has adopted a definition of certification that flies in the face of the common sense meaning of the term. Certification, as I understand it, involves developing a standard and then measuring the production processes against that standard. If processes do not meet that standard, the product cannot be certified.

In the case of cocoa this would mean developing an appropriate level of child participation in cocoa farming. Cocoa can be certified to meet that standard if it is verified that children’s involvement did not rise above the levels specified. To achieve that certification, industry would use its resources to help bring child labor down to acceptable levels. Continue reading “The Harkin-Engel Protocol – Part 3”