A study by the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC), has revealed that 51 per cent of children in cocoa growing areas in Ghana are engaged in hazardous child labour activities in cocoa production.
The study undertaken by NORC between 2018 and 2019 in both Ghana and Ivory Coast – the world’s two largest producers of cocoa – revealed a 14 percentage points and 13 percentage points increments in the prevalence of child labour and hazardous child labour respectively, among agricultural households.
According to NORC, its survey indicates that, in all agricultural households in cocoa growing areas, 38 percent of children in Côte d’Ivoire and 55 percent of children in Ghana were engaged in child labor in cocoa production.
Despite the increase in both child labour and hazardous child labour in cocoa growing areas in the two countries, NORC also observed that school attendance among children in agricultural households in cocoa growing areas increased from 58 to 80 percent in Côte d’Ivoire and from 89 to 96 percent in Ghana between 2008-09 and 2018-19.
It also observed that multiple interventions implemented in the cocoa growing communities by the respective governments and multinational chocolate manufacturing companies like Hershey and Mars Wrigley, led to a statistically significant reduction in the rates of child labour and hazardous child labour in cocoa production.
Based on its findings, NORC made the following recommendations;
- Engage community leaders, including representatives for women and youth, early in the design of interventions to ensure that objectives and implementation plans are realistic and relevant to the community.
- Create open and early relationships with government partners at national and regional levels so they are well-positioned to move intervention activities forward.
- Maintain and participate in national action plans and steering committees on child labor and child protection.
The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) at the U.S. Department of Labor, tasked NORC to conduct a survey representative of children age 5-17 living in agricultural households in the cocoa growing areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana during the 2018-19 cocoa harvest season.
The goal of the survey was to develop population estimates for the prevalence of working children, child labor, and the worst forms of child labour in agriculture, and then compare those estimates to estimates from 2008-09 and 2013-14.
In addition, NORC was to assess the effectiveness of interventions to reduce child labour and the worst forms of child labour in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
The study represents a five-year collaboration between NORC, the U.S Department of Labor, the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, representatives from the international cocoa and chocolate industry, civil society organizations, and several international organizations with an interest in child labor, including UNICEF, the International Cocoa Initiative, and the International Labour Organization.
NORC, as part of the study administered 2,809 household head surveys, 5,552 child surveys, 158 community surveys, 372 cocoa shed surveys, and 260 school surveys across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
