Tackling child labour in the cocoa industry

Harriet Lamb, Director of the Fairtrade Foundation, shares her thoughts on Panorama's Chocolate - The Bitter Truth. 





How shocking is it that in 2010 there are still families so poor that kids are trafficked to work on cocoa farms? That farmers in West Africa don’t get enough for their cocoa to make ends meet. That is a scandal. It still makes my blood boil. And it’s just plain sad to see the kids shown on last night’s BBC Panorama – The Bitter Truth. It is to bring an end such injustices that so many people across the world – from visionary leaders among cocoa farmers in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire through to members of the public in the UK – have taken Fairtrade to heart. Exactly because Fairtrade will not walk away from these real and deep-rooted problems. Rather, we have a system to deal with them. Only through Fairtrade, can you know that the cocoa comes from a group of farmers, who have committed to organise democratically and to meet a range of rigorous standards including a promise stamp out child labour, and in exchange they get a fair price and premium.

Sometimes, it is true, that individual farmers fall down on the standards. But the Fairtrade system means the farmers’ coops themselves and the Fairtrade auditors are checking. And on the odd occasion that we find any children who are trafficked or forced to work – then care of those children must be our first concern. After that, we take action to sort out the problem, and prevent it happening in the future. And to invest in positive moves to build a different future for the children.

At the start of the programme, the presenter promised to tell viewers what Fairtrade really means. Well – if he had wanted to do that, he should have told you that what Fairtrade means above all else, is not only the rigour of standards but also the promise of a better deal for the farmers which enables them to make poverty history for themselves. And time and time again the farmers are deciding to invest that extra premium in the education of their kids. Among the farmers of Kavokiva in Cote d’Ivoire, a utterly shocking nine out of ten farmers are illiterate. So guess what? They’ve invested the Fairtrade premium into education – adult education classes, especially for women but also into scholarships so kids can go to school and even building make-shift schools in areas where there are none. I salute the leaders among the cocoa farmers who are tackling these problems for the long term. Kavokiva agreed a Charter against child labour years ago, and have a programme of raising awareness among the farmers about why forced child labour cannot be tolerated.

Panorama is shocking and sad viewing. But if you want your spirits lifted, just read the farmers’ responses to the programme and hear what they are doing, day in and day out, to tackle the problems. Until last year, most Fairtrade cocoa groups in West Africa could only sell one in ten bags of cocoa on Fairtrade terms – so that really limited what they could do. Now, thanks to major commitments by Cadbury Dairy Milk and Kit Kat, those groups can sell serious volumes on Fairtrade terms. And that will make a serious difference.

Fairtrade never guaranteed a perfect rose-tinted world. We do guarantee a fair price and premium to the farmers’ groups – that badly needed extra resource to start tackling problems like child labour. We do guarantee clear and rigorous standards. We do guarantee that we will check against those standards and take action if we find problems. Who can say fairer than that?

Read a statement by Fairtrade Foundation following the BBC Panorama Report.


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