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Article Excerpt
Reports of forced child labour on the cocoa farms of Cote d'Ivoire surfaced in 2000 and quickly became an important business issue for a number of prominent companies. Media coverage and the threat of regulatory action mobilised the international cocoa industry to collaborate with other stakeholders to eliminate the worst forms of child labour from cocoa production. The international cocoa industry moved from a refusal to acknowledge serious labour problems in the global cocoa supply chain, to acknowledgement, and a public commitment to act to address the problems. The experience of the cocoa industry provides a number of lessons for executives, advocates and policy-makers seeking to promote labour standards. Industry participants sought the participation of multiple stakeholders, defined standards by referencing international law, and sought reliable information from the field. This case also demonstrates that pressure on consumer brands, strategic government intervention and geographic concentration facilitates collaborative action.
* Cocoa
* Child labour
* Forced labour
* Cote d'Ivoire
* Human rights
* Cocoa Industry Protocol
* International Cocoa Initiative
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REPORTS OF SLAVE LABOUR ON COCOA FARMS SURFACED AS EARLY AS 1998, WHEN an Ivorian newspaper reported the widespread practice of importing and indenturing Malian boys for fieldwork on Ivorian plantations (USDOS 1999). The United States Department of State reported an initial estimate of 15,000 Malian children working on Ivorian cocoa and coffee plantations (USDOS 2001). The child workers, many of whom were under 12 years of age, were sold into indentured servitude for US$140 and worked 12 hour days for US$135 to 189 per year.
Cote d'Ivoire is the world's leading cocoa producer, typically supplying more than 40% of the cocoa consumed worldwide. In 2001, Cote d'Ivoire exported 1.4 million tons of cocoa beans. (1) Cocoa production employed more than 7 million people on 450,000 Ivorian cocoa farms, and cocoa exports accounted for a third of the country's export earnings. Unlike the European and North American markets that consume most of the cocoa, Cote d'Ivoire and its neighbours rank among the world's least developed countries. (2) Average per capita GDP (gross domestic product) for Cote d'Ivoire's 16 million people is US$1,490.
In September 2000, a British television documentary reported that hundreds of thousands of children in Burkina Faso, Mali and Togo were being purchased from their parents and sold as slaves to cocoa farmers in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire. The documentary included claims that slavery existed on as many as 90% of Ivorian cocoa farms. According to subsequent media accounts, children as young as six years old were forced to work 80-100 hour weeks without pay, suffered from malnutrition, and were subject to beatings and other abuse.
The media spotlight prompted Ivorian government officials to blame the international cocoa industry for keeping prices too low to ensure an adequate standard of living for Ivorian cocoa farmers. In its 2000 report on human rights practices in Cote d'Ivoire, the us Department of State observed, 'Children regularly are trafficked into the country from neighbouring countries and sold into forced labour' (USDOS 2001). The UK called for West African states to sign a treaty establishing a legal framework for combating slavery and forced labour, and the British Foreign Office created a task force of governments, industry and NGOs to address forced labour in the cocoa industry. The following month, in June 2001, Knight Ridder Newspapers in the United States profiled cocoa farm slaves between the ages of 12 and 16, and reported on one Cote d'Ivoire farmer who had been prosecuted in Cote d'Ivoire for mistreating 19 boys from Mali and holding them in abysmal conditions (Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News 2001).
The public allegations of child slavery would reverberate throughout the global cocoa industry, prompting major cocoa brands to reassess their sphere of influence over and responsibility for human rights conditions in the cocoa supply chain.
The global cocoa supply chain
Most cocoa is grown on small farms of less than 6 hectares. Cocoa bean production is labour-intensive and overwhelmingly a family enterprise. (3) In Cote d'Ivoire, for example, the average farm has five workers, and four or five are the former's family members (IITA 2002: 20).
The cocoa supply chain includes many intermediaries between the farmer and consumer. Small farmers typically sell their cocoa harvest to local middlemen for cash. The middlemen work under contract for local exporters, who, in turn, sell cocoa to international traders and the major international cocoa brands. The US-based agricultural trading companies Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill, private companies Guittard Chocolate Company and Blommer Chocolate Co., and the Swiss multinationals Nestle, and Barry and Callebaut AG, are the largest chocolate processing companies. (4) ADM and Cargill own processing plants in Cote d'Ivoire.
The global market price for cocoa beans, averaging 78 cents per pound in August 2004, is determined on the future markets of the London Cocoa Terminal Market and the New York Cocoa Exchange. Of course, after every level in the supply chain earns a profit, farmers receive substantially lower prices per pound than the price on global markets.
North America and Western Europe consume two-thirds of global cocoa production. Nestle, the us companies Mars, Inc. and Hershey Foods, and Britain's Cadbury Schweppes are the leading chocolate producers. (5)
The human rights at issue
Allegations of abusive conditions on cocoa farms raised human rights issues for governments and cocoa industry participants. The human rights at issue are widely accepted international standards prohibiting child labour, forced labour and trafficking in persons.
Prohibited child labour
Child labour is common in the agricultural sector and widespread in countries where cocoa is grown. (6) The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are 378,000 working children in Cote d'Ivoire alone (ILO 2001a). When allegations of child labour on cocoa farms were first made, Cote d'Ivoire was not a party to the ILO Minimum Age Convention (7) and Ivorian minimum age laws did not conform to international legal standards.
Under Ivorian law, children over the age of 14 are allowed to work as long as the work is not dangerous and the children have parental consent. The legal minimum age for agricultural work is 12. Local labour law limits the hours of workers under 18. In practice, children often work on family farms and in the informal economy.
Widely accepted international labour standards, such as those contained in ILO and United Nations conventions, prohibit any form of work by children younger than 12. (8) Under international conventions, developing countries may permit the employment of children in 'family and small-scale holdings producing for local consumption and not regularly employing hired workers.' (9)
Permanent workers younger than 12 on cocoa farms would fall short of international standards. Family children who perform more than 'light work' or whose work interferes with compulsory education also classify as prohibited child labourers under ILO standards. Primary education in Cote d'Ivoire is compulsory but unenforced, particularly in rural areas. Primary education usually ends at age 13 (USDOS 2001). Since cocoa is produced predominantly for export, international standards make no exception to minimum age standards due to the family or small-scale nature of...
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