Ghana, US, Cote d’Ivoire to announce initiative to eliminate child labour on cocoa farms

Ghana together with the US, and Cote d’Ivoire will announce a new initiative to eliminate the worse forms of child labour on cocoa farms in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.

Chocolate and cocoa industry executives will join labour ministers from the three countries for the event scheduled for September 13, 2010 in Washington D. C., according to a press release from the US Department of Labour.

The US Secretary of Labour, Hilda L. Solis, Ghana’s Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, E. T. Mensah, and Cote d’Ivoire’s Minister of Public Service and Employment, Emile Guirieoulou will be joined by other members of the US Congress to announce the project which is meant to address the situation in the two countries.

Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire supply more than half of the world’s cocoa.

According to the release the plan supports the Harkin-Engel Protocol, an international agreement signed in September 2001 aimed at ending child labor in the production of cocoa.

When allegations of child labour on cocoa farms in Ghana were being made some years back, the Vice President, John Mahama refuted the allegations. He said, “I wish to state that Ghana is a signatory to the various conventions on Child and Forced Labour and would never allow any infractions especially in a prime sector such as cocoa.”

He made these remarks at the launch of cocoa products manufactured by Cargill Ghana Limited (CGL) at Tema on September 9, 2009.

“Rural farm families own small cocoa farms usually planted on family lands or rented through traditional land tenure systems…Minors accompany their parents to farm as part of their social acculturation,” he said.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi