Ghana on course to eliminate ‘child labour’ in cocoa growing areas

Ghana's efforts in the fight against ‘child labour’ in cocoa growing communities have earned international acclaim.

Research conducted by the Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America (USA), has established that Ghana’s effort at working hard to  stop children from engaging in hazardous work is on course.

Results

The research, which covered the 2008/09 and 2013/14 harvest seasons, noted that against a backdrop of population growth and increases in cocoa production, Ghana managed not  only to reduce the percentage of children exposed to hazardous work in cocoa but also in other areas of child exploitation.

The purpose of the survey, which was conducted in Ghana and Cote d'ivoire, was to assess the prevalence and measure changes in the estimates of working children and children involved in hazardous work in the West African cocoa sector.

It established that in 2013/14, the number of children in child labour in cocoa production decreased from 43.9 per cent to 41.1 per cent, with 96 per cent of them attending school in 2013/14, as against 91 per cent in 2008/09.

Danger

But there is looming danger that the achievements may be eroded if the government, in the earliest possible time, does not release GH¢5 million to the National Programme for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa (NPECLC) to continue the child labour eradication campaign.

The NPECLC is a government mechanism set up for the interventions to rescue children used in hazardous activities in the cocoa sector but the programme has, for some time now, been starved of cash.

The lack of funds, according to the Programme Manager of the NPECLC, Mr Ken Mamudu, had affected the smooth running of the programme, to the extent that its remediation efforts were suffering.

The Daily Graphic learnt on a visit to the offices of the NPECLC at the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, that staff of the programme had been rendered redundant, for which reason they no longer go to work.

The current financial situation has compelled the office to put on hold the intended start of a needs assessment on children who were selected through the Ghana Child Labour Monitoring System (GCLMS).

The needs assessment was to help inform the distribution of school materials such as uniforms, sandals, pencils, pens, erasers and mathematical sets to 1,300 vulnerable children in cocoa growing communities.

A pilot project conducted under the GCLMS in five districts and 25 communities identified 2,858 children as being in worst forms of child labour or at risk of being in child labour.

Among the objectives of the exercise were to ascertain the number of vulnerable schoolchildren who needed basic school materials and also the number of children who were above school age and needed to be supported with vocational skills training.

But sources at the ministry told the Daily Graphic that Ghana risked being blacklisted if the current financial situation persisted.

Background

The NPECLC was established in 2006 by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), as a response to negative international media reports about the existence of the worst forms of child labour in Ghana’s cocoa production chain and the subsequent threat of boycott of Ghana’s cocoa on the international market.

In 2001, there was strong agitation on the international media front, especially in the USA and the UK, against child exploitation in the cocoa industry in Cote d’Ivoire and, by association and proximity, Ghana. 

That occasioned threats by some consumers to boycott chocolate from these countries.

Against that backdrop, the Harkin–Engel Protocol, sometimes referred to as the Cocoa Protocol, an international agreement aimed at ending the worst forms of child labour, was negotiated by Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Elliot Engel of the US Congress in response to a documentary and multiple articles in 2000 and 2001 reporting widespread child slavery and child trafficking in the production of cocoa.

The protocol was signed in September 2001.

 Writer’s email: sebastian.syme4@gmail.com