As Easter approaches and sales of choco­late increase, so does con­cern about the ongo­ing prob­lem of child labor in the cocoa indus­try. Recent pro­grams in Switzer­land, Ger­many and Den­mark have taken a closer look at the cocoa indus­try and where our choco­late comes from. This week, a doc­u­men­tary called “The Dark Side of Choco­late” pre­miered on Dan­ish tele­vi­sion which inves­ti­gated alle­ga­tions of traf­fick­ing of chil­dren and child labor in the inter­na­tional cocoa indus­try. Also this week, in Ger­many, a cur­rent affairs pro­gram exam­ined the use of child labor in the cocoa indus­try in Côte d’Ivoire.

In light of this recent media atten­tion, Fair­trade Labelling Orga­ni­za­tions (FLO), of which Trans­Fair USA is a mem­ber, is tak­ing the oppor­tu­nity to address the ongo­ing real­ity of child labor in the cocoa indus­try and explain what we in the Fair Trade move­ment have been doing to increase our own efforts to com­bat it.

Scope of the prob­lem
We agree that there has not been enough progress towards the erad­i­ca­tion of child labor in the past 10 years.  It is an unac­cept­able fact that chil­dren around the world are being employed and exploited, forced to work in abu­sive and dan­ger­ous con­di­tions when they should be at school or on play­grounds. Chil­dren are bought, sold and traded within and across national bor­ders.  Those who live in abject poverty are espe­cially vulnerable.

• An esti­mated 218 mil­lion chil­dren are involved in work around the world.¹
• 126 mil­lion work under the worst forms of child labor.²
• More than one mil­lion chil­dren are employed in the cocoa farm­ing sec­tor in West Africa.³
• Between 200,000 and 800,000 chil­dren under the age of 18 are traf­ficked each year in West Africa alone.⁴

FLO is aware and con­cerned about the con­tin­ued vast scale of child labor and child traf­fick­ing.  We believe every­one has the respon­si­bil­ity to work to erad­i­cate child labor:  gov­ern­ments, NGOs, UN bod­ies, trade unions, child wel­fare orga­ni­za­tions, choco­late man­u­fac­tur­ers and traders, farm­ers’ groups and con­sumers.  We take our own respon­si­bil­ity very seri­ously and believe there is still much to be done within Fair Trade and we are work­ing to strengthen our sys­tem regard­ing this issue.

Fair Trade helps to detect prob­lems, and take action on them
The Fair Trade stan­dards for pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions pro­hibit child labor – work that is haz­ardous, exploitive or that under­mines a child’s edu­ca­tion or its emo­tional and phys­i­cal health.  We fol­low the ILO Con­ven­tions, includ­ing Con­ven­tion 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, and our audits check com­pli­ance against this.  Qual­i­fied audi­tors inspect Fair Trade pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions on a reg­u­lar basis to mon­i­tor for child labor.

In the past year, a small num­ber of sus­pected cases of the worst forms of child labor were found dur­ing Fair Trade audits.  We reported these imme­di­ately to the rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment and child pro­tec­tion author­i­ties, then fol­lowed up to ensure the well­be­ing of the impacted child(ren). FLO’s first and utmost con­cern is the safety and well-being of indi­vid­ual children.

In cases of uncon­di­tional worst forms of child labor, Fair Trade also sus­pends or decer­ti­fies the Fair Trade pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tion where these worst forms of labor are found until pro­tec­tive and cor­rec­tive mea­sures are put in place.  Pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions must set up inter­nal sys­tems to iden­tify and elim­i­nate child labor within their own com­mu­ni­ties.  Fair Trade works with pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions to address issues on a pro­gres­sive basis rather than sim­ply de-certifying them as a first response to find­ings of non-conformities. The goal is to assist in solv­ing the prob­lem instead of impos­ing harsh puni­tive mea­sures that push farm­ers into deeper poverty, and could put even more chil­dren at risk.

Beyond audits to com­mu­nity sup­port pro­grams
Whilst audit­ing can help iden­tify and uncover cases of child labor, audi­tors can­not be on every small farm every minute of every day of every year. Instead, Fair Trade believes we must sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties to help them tackle child labor them­selves. Through Fair Trade, farm­ers groups are able to earn addi­tional Pre­mium of $150/tonne that they can use to improve their busi­ness and build com­mu­nity pro­grams, from awareness-raising on issues of child labor to help­ing increase the avail­abil­ity and qual­ity of local school­ing. Pay­ing farm­ers a fairer price for their cocoa is cru­cial for mov­ing away from a reliance on child labor in the long term.

Child labor is under­stood in the Fair Trade sys­tem not only as prob­lems faced by indi­vid­ual chil­dren and their fam­i­lies, but also as prob­lems per­pet­u­ated by poverty and unfair terms of trade. That’s why the focus of Fair Trade is to strengthen the posi­tion of farm­ers and work­ers in inter­na­tional sup­ply chains, help them to become orga­nized within their com­mu­ni­ties as well as to earn a bet­ter deal from the sale of their produce.

Fair Trade is com­mit­ted to doing more
Over the last year we have:

• sharp­ened our audit tools
• improved our pro­ducer sup­port on this issue
• started a child labor task force
• pub­lished child labor posi­tion paper
• pro­vided input for pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions on devel­op­ing of an Inter­nal Con­trol Sys­tem, so that they can bet­ter track the activ­ity of their members
• devel­oped a child pro­tec­tion pol­icy and pro­ce­dures which is being implemented
• engaged local NGOs for part­ner­ships on joint projects
• pro­vided extra vis­its to train and sup­port producers
• com­menced train­ing on child labor and child pro­tec­tion in FLO and FLO-CERT

United effort to erad­i­cate child labor
Fair Trade is doing its part to alle­vi­ate poverty and pre­vent child labor through a strat­egy that enables pro­duc­ers to empower them­selves, long term trade rela­tions and part­ner engage­ment. Our plan of action for the future now includes:

• Build­ing more train­ing, tools and part­ner­ships with expert organizations
• Improv­ing our ongo­ing on-site sup­port to coop­er­a­tives and their mem­bers, aware­ness raising
• Sup­port in build­ing part­ner­ships between coops and experts and NGOs
• Train­ing Fair Trade local liai­son offi­cers on child labor and child protection
• Scal­ing up our pro­gram of vis­its to Ivory Coast for child labor and child pro­tec­tion train­ing at all Fair Trade coops
• Orga­niz­ing multi-stakeholder dis­cus­sion to inform FLO future direc­tion and policy
• Pub­lish­ing a new and improved child labor pol­icy by the Sum­mer of 2010
• FLO-Cert train­ing for audi­tors and staff

What does Fair Trade guar­an­tee?
At present, no one per­son or sys­tem can pro­vide a 100 per­cent guar­an­tee that choco­late is free of child labor. What the Fair Trade sys­tem guar­an­tees is that if we find breaches of our stan­dards, we will take imme­di­ate action. We will act to pro­tect chil­dren. We will act to pre­vent cocoa from farms proved to be using child labor from enter­ing the Fair Trade sys­tem. And we will act to sup­port farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties in tack­ling prob­lems so that they can con­tinue to trade their way out of poverty.

Fair Trade is com­mit­ted to com­bat­ing child labor.

• Fair Trade guar­an­tees stan­dards that pro­hibit child labor.
• Fair Trade guar­an­tees a rig­or­ous cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and audit sys­tem designed to detect cases of child labor
• Fair Trade guar­an­tees that we act imme­di­ately when cases are found to pro­tect the chil­dren involved and secure their safety.
• Fair Trade guar­an­tees that farm­ers receive addi­tional pre­mi­ums that they can use to improve life in their own com­mu­ni­ties, and to develop their own programs

Inter­ested? Learn more.
FLO’s Posi­tion Paper on Child Labor
Fact Sheet on Child Labor
Stan­dards for small-scale pro­duc­ers
Pro­ducer stan­dards for hired labor

This post has been adapted from an item posted on FLO’s web­site.

^{1 United Nations
2 United Nations
3 Inter­na­tional Insti­tute of Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture 2002
4 Inter­na­tional Labor Orga­ni­za­tion ILO 2007}

Sourced from: Fair Trade Certified ™ Blog

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