On the 25 July 2001, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)
hosted a workshop to discuss working practices in cocoa production
in West Africa. This meeting follows the press coverage of the
trafficking of 43 children on the Etireno ship to Gabon
in April this year and the commitment by the former FCO Minister,
Brian Wilson, to establish a task force to look into the problem.
The workshop was attended by representatives from the Governments
of Côte d'Ivoire and other producing countries, international
organisations, trade bodies, trades unions, manufacturers, retailers
and NGOs, including Anti-Slavery.
The meeting heard presentations on the cocoa industry and its
methods of working, labour structures in the region's cocoa production
and the information available on trafficking within West Africa.
At the end of the meeting the participants agreed to support
a survey involving the US Agency for International Development
and being carried out by the International Institute for Tropical
Agriculture. The survey, part of a larger tropical tree crops
programme, will study working conditions on thousands of farms
and report on the scale and nature of child and forced labour
practices, and the ILO will provide technical support to this
part of the survey. Work on this and a supplementary US Department
of Labor survey will begin in September.
The meeting also agreed to establish a Taskforce representing
all sectors present at the workshop to consider other measures
that could be taken by the governments and the industry to prevent
and eradicate child and forced labour in the cocoa sector. Participants
at the workshop will also attend a regional conference to be hosted
by the government of the Cote d'Ivoire in September 2001 to discuss
how to implement further measures to tackle these problems.
Anti-Slavery welcomes the proposed surveys as it believes that
much more detailed information on the working practices in the
industry is required to inform decisions on how to effectively
tackle this problem. However, it is essential that the survey
seeks information from local organisations in both sending and
receiving countries on current trafficking practices and on which
areas need to be investigated.
Any proposed solutions will need to take into account the opinions
and best interests of any children and adults who may be affected
and should also consider the impact any changes in the cocoa industry
may have on the use of child labour, forced labour and trafficking
in other sectors in the region. Consideration must also be given
to the need to alleviate the impact of rapid fluctuations in cocoa
prices on the small farmers involved in the industry.
