Oct 27, 2020
Child labor in cocoa production areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana increased 14% between the 2009 and the 2019 harvest seasons. This increase in child labor corresponded with a 62% increase in cocoa production during the same time period.
According to research from the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, the majority of this increase occurred in low and medium production areas. Areas defined as having high cocoa production did not have this increase.
For years, reports have found food companies are not doing enough to eradicate child labor from its supply chain, especially in the cocoa industry. A 2018 report found chocolate companies’ programs to improve sustainability in the sector have resulted in a few changes during the past 10 years, maintaining high levels of child labor.
The cocoa industry, however, can still work to self-correct the problem. One advantage that companies have now is technology. Now the chocolate companies have the opportunity to integrate visibility into portions of its supply chains that were previously hiding from view due to geographic distance and lack of real-time connectivity.
Continuously, cocoa companies have been unsuccessful to deliver on their pledges to eradicate child labor from their sources in West Africa, where the majority of the world’s cocoa is produced. In fact, the world’s largest chocolatiers have missed multiple deadlines in 2005, 2008, and 2010 to eliminate child labor from their supply chains.
In this year’s study from the Labor Department, the number hovered at nearly 1.6 million children — or 38% of those living in agricultural households in Côte d’Ivoire and 55% of children in the same situation in Ghana. A large part of the difficulty of eliminating this form of labor is the complexity of integrating transparency into supply chains.
Cocoa companies are trying to reduce this number. In September, Olam International, the world’s third-largest cocoa processor, achieved 100% traceability for the cocoa it directly sources. However, its directly sourced cocoa only represents about 60% of the company’s purchases. Cocoa leader Barry Callebaut said last year that 26% of the farmer groups it uses have systems in place to prevent, monitor, and remediate child labor.
Cocoa is not the only industry facing these struggles. The palm oil industry is rife with problems associated with labor practices like child labor. It has also been hard for this industry to root out child labor. This month, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection began blocking palm oil imports from producers that are particularly problematic.According to Mordor Intelligence, the global chocolate market is forecast to reach $139 billion by 2024 with growth averaging 4.5% annually,