Question 3: Family farming
Community Based Development (CBD) as a working solution to reducing child labour in the African cocoa sector
According to a study commissioned by the US Department of labour in 2013/14, child labour is extraordinarily high in the cocoa sector, with more than 2 million children are engaged in hazardous work in the cocoa industries of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire alone (Tulane University, 2015). Most of the children in the sector are involved in carrying heavy loads of cocoa beans, firewood and water, with around 20 percent of the children involved in felling trees, burning fields, handling agro-chemicals etc. Boys are more likely to be involved in child labour (60 percent) in the cocoa sector than girls (40 percent) (Nestle, 2017).
Studies have found that most of the children involved in labour in cocoa farming live with their family (Babo, 2019). Expecting parents to remove their children from working in cocoa farms, preventing them from capitalizing on their children’s help to produce cocoa, and sending them to school, without an appropriate solution that would increase the incomes of these cocoa farmers is myopic and not prudent.
Therefore, anti-child labour efforts that do not consider the socio-economic livelihood of cocoa farmers and their families at the heart of its solution will not be fruitful. Solutions to eradicating child labour and improving children’s development must also encompass the family’s needs in terms of infrastructure and access to health, drinking water, sanitation, education, housing etc. – some of the crucial pillars of alleviating poverty and improving people’s wellbeing.
As a result, over the last fifteen years, initiatives to fight child labour within the cocoa value chain have moved towards overall community development and involving the community in their endeavours – a model now commonly known as community based development (CBD). The Swiss based foundation, International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), as well as programmes run by major cocoa corporations – MARS inc., Hershey’s, Cargill, Nestle, Barry Callibaut – root their efforts in this community approach and saw some successful results (Babo, 2019).
For instance, child labour sensitization and awareness campaigns in remote rural communities increased the communities’ willingness to combat it and resulted in themselves setting up “child labour committees” to fight the exploitation of children in the cocoa sector. Other projects involved building schools, installing drinking water facilities, creating cash crops and small businesses to fund health and education. Communities, such as Campement Paul, and Boignykro in Côte d’Ivoire and Sekyere Krobo in Ghana, are highlighted by ICI as exemplars of effective community-based project implementation (Babo, 2019). Nestle reports that it has been able to reduce child labour by 51 percent over a period of three years through the implementation of its Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS), a system that is based on CBD (Nestle, 2017). Additionally, a study found that Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty grants (LEAP), which is a cash transfer program for the poor and vulnerable (including children) administered by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in Ghana, decreased child labour incidents amongst LEAP beneficiaries in the Ningo-Prampram district (Aculey, 2019).
However, the draft of a report to be released by the US department of Labor in June 2020 found that the proportion of children engaged in child labour in the cocoa sector increased from 30 percent in 2008/09 to 46 percent in 2018/19 (Reuters, 2020). While there has been success in reducing child labour within the sector, the rise in the proportion of children working in the cocoa sector have possibly increased due to increased cocoa prices and production (Reuters, 2020).
The limitations to the further success of CBD is attributed to the communities’ lack of control over the management of financial resources, and a lack of consideration of the ethnic, social, political, economic and historical contexts and differences between each community in CBD efforts (Babo, 2019). Communities that are divided by ethnic, political and land tenure conflicts are unable to cooperate and effectively participate in CBD projects, as was seen in the case of the Soubre region in southern Côte d’Ivoire (Babo, 2019). Therefore, CBD approaches should be implemented keeping the economic, social, historical and political contexts of each community in mind in order to scale reduction of child labour in the cocoa sector.
References:
Aculey, D. 2019. Assessing the effectiveness of livelihood empowerment against poverty to the reduction of child labour in the Ningo-Prampram district. University of Ghana. Accra. (also available at http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh/bitstream/handle/123456789/32596/Assessing%20the%20Effectiveness%20of%20Livelihood%20Empowerment%20against%20Poverty%20to%20the%20Reduction%20of%20Child%20Labour%20in%20the%20Ningo-Prampram%20District.pdf?sequence=1)
Babo, A. 2019. Eliminating child labour in rural areas: Limits of community-based approaches in South-Western Côte d’Ivoire in Ballet, J. and Bhukuth, A. eds. Child exploitation in the Global South. Palgrave.
Nestle. 2017. Nestle Cocoa Plan – Tackling child labour 2017 report. (also available at https://www.nestle.com/sites/default/files/asset-library/documents/creating-shared-value/responsible-sourcing/nestle-cocoa-plan-child-labour-2017-report.pdf)
Reuters. 2020. Child labour still prevalent in West Africa cocoa sector despite industry efforts –report. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. (also available at https://www.reuters.com/article/cocoa-childlabour-ivory-coast-ghana/child-labour-still-prevalent-in-west-africa-cocoa-sector-despite-industry-efforts-report-idUSL5N2BX3KS)
Tulane University. 2015. Survey Research on Child Labor in West African Cocoa Growing Areas 2013/14. US Department of Labor. (also available at https://cocoainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/tulane_university_-_survey_research_on_child_labor_in_the_cocoa_sector_-_30_july_2015.pdf )
Sra. Padmini Gopal