Cocoa

Where is cocoa produced with forced labor?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (2010), cocoa is produced with forced labor in Côte d’Ivoire (CDI) and Nigeria, with child labor in Cameroon, CDI, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria.

How is cocoa produced?

Production

Once cocoa pods ripen and are harvested, they are opened and the beans are removed, fermented and dried. They are then sold to middlemen, who transport and sell them to cocoa processors. The processor then roasts and grinds the beans, producing chocolate liquor, a key ingredient in chocolate products (World Cocoa Federation).

Trade

The vast majority of cocoa is grown in the West African countries of Ghana and CDI, which together produce around 70 percent of all cocoa. Other major producers are Indonesia, which produces roughly the same amount of cocoa as Ghana, and Brazil, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Colombia and Mexico, which together account for roughly 15% of world output (UNCTAD 2004).

While cocoa grows in only limited areas, most processing of cocoa currently takes place in the United States or Europe, notably Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and the U.K. The cocoa industry as a whole is very centralized: according to the UNCTAD (2004) “five multinational companies - ADM, Barry-Callebaut, Cargill, Hamester and Blommer - account for half of world cocoa grindings. Similarly, chocolate sales are dominated by a few large companies. Mars and Hershey account for roughly three quarters of sales in the world’s leading consuming country, the United States, while Cadbury, Nestlé and Mars hold a similar share in the United Kingdom.”

Though cocoa processing and trade is centralized, industry groups argue that tracing cocoa usage to the actual farms where cocoa is grown is not currently possible, preventing them from directly monitoring their suppliers.

Cocoa and Fair Trade

Cocoa is one of the principle products of the Fair Trade movement. A number of cooperatives, for example Kuapa Kokoo of Ghana, the makers of Divine Chocolate, use fair trade cocoa to get a better price for their members, to monitor the conditions under which cocoa is grown, and to improve productivity. Fair Trade cocoa has even begun to be included in confections by major companies, such as the Fair Trade Kit Kat by Nestlé. Despite gains, however, Fair Trade cocoa represents less than one percent of all cocoa sales.

Case Study

Cocoa and Conflict: The Case of Côte D’Ivoire

In Côte D'Ivoire, cocoa trade helped fund both sides of the civil conflict between 2002 and 2007. As recently as 2010 Human Rights Watch published a report which verified the continued use of cocoa to fund rebel movements. Human Rights Watch found that despite the official cessation of the civil war, cocoa and timber trade in Western CDI is being used to finance the Forces Nouvelles, primarily through transport “fees”.

Additionally, misuse of cocoa trade has also contributed to widespread violence, including sexual violence. The cocoa industry in CDI also has high levels of corruption. In 2008, “the Ivorian Attorney General announced that 23 employees of national cocoa institutions, some of them top officials, were being charged with fraud and embezzlement following an investigation into alleged misappropriations of funds" (Global Witness 2008). These factors challenge meaningful efforts to address forced labor.

How does forced labor in cocoa affect me?

Cocoa is not only the key ingredient of chocolate but also an important element of many cosmetics and soaps, pharmaceutical products, and baked goods which feature cocoa butter.

What does forced labor in cocoa production look like?

Forced labor in cocoa production is most frequently the result of trafficking in persons. In CDI, victims of trafficking, most commonly boys and young teenagers, come from the neighboring countries of Burkina Faso and Mali intending to migrate to CDI (Tulane 2010). However, they are taken to farms where they are subject to unsafe work, may be abused, and are not paid.

The same conditions are present to a lesser extent in Nigeria. However, as Nigeria is not as large a producer of cocoa as CDI, labor conditions in the commodity have not been studied to the same extent.

The worst forms of child labor occur in cocoa production when children work alongside their relatives on small family farms. According to estimates from the International Labor Organization (2008), 300,000 children work in cocoa production worldwide.

What are governments, corporations, and others doing?

Due to high-profile advocacy from a number of organizations alleging the use of forced child labor in cocoa production, the confectionary industry and the Governments of Ghana, CDI, and the U.S. signed the Harkin-Engle Protocol committing to addressing child and forced labor in Ghana and CDI. After moderate progress, an extension, known as the Joint Action Plan, was launched in 2010. The Action Plan commits a combined US$17 million over ten years to building capacity in cocoa growing communities and to increasing efforts to end child labor. The action plan has a number of flaws, including the absence of initiatives addressing labor conditions outside of Ghana and CDI and the absence of participation from industry groups outside the confectionary sector. However, it does build on strong multi-stakeholder involvement.

The International Cocoa Initiative, established as part of efforts under the Harkin-Engle Protocol, organizes work on environmental and labor standards in the West African cocoa sector. Other initiatives include a major investment by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (GTZ 2010) in building cocoa productivity and a new development by Helvetica which for the first time will seek to track cocoa beans from the rural farms where they are grown to the warehouses where processors make purchases.

Where can I learn more?

Watch a short video by the International Labor Organization on child labor in Cameroon.
Read a manual by the International Labor Organization on best practices for reducing child labor in cocoa farms.
Visit the website of the international Labor Rights Forum to learn which companies are most active in ending forced and child labor.
Buy or learn about fair trade cocoa.