The international cocoa industry announced on 6 October the launch of a pilot scheme in Côte d'Ivoire to monitor the use of illegal child labour.

The programme will begin in November and will work closely with the Côte d'Ivoire Government to develop ongoing methods for monitoring up to 80,000 small farms supplying cocoa for export.

Anti-Slavery International is also calling for the industry to tackle other forms of forced labour apart from illegal child labour and to offer a price guarantee to the small farmers similar to that offered by fair trade organisations.

The move stems from the Cocoa Protocol, which was agreed in 2001 by the cocoa industry, a number of human rights organisations and trade unions, after worldwide attention was drawn to the issue of slavery in cocoa production.