By Charles S. Amponsah | Picture credit: Adwoa Anaah Adjei
The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) is putting education at the centre of efforts to reduce child and forced labour in cocoa-growing communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
Through initiatives such as access to schools, bridging classes for children who have fallen behind, apprenticeship programmes for older children, adult literacy classes, and awareness-raising sessions, ICI is working to make schooling more accessible and attractive, while easing the reliance on children for hazardous farm work.
In 2015, the world pledged to end child labour by 2025 under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 8.7. That deadline has now passed, yet child labour persists. Research by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF estimates that about 28 million children globally are in forced labour, with millions more missing out on school because of economic pressures.
In Ghana, children in cocoa-growing communities remain among the most vulnerable, often engaging in hazardous work instead of pursuing education.
It is against this backdrop that Katie Bird, Communications Director of ICI, underlined the central role of schooling in tackling the problem during an interview with GBC on the sidelines of a two-day journalist training in Kumasi. The training sought to deepen journalists’ understanding of child and forced labour and strengthen their skills in producing ethical, solutions-focused reporting.
“Another really big important point is access to quality education. So if there isn’t a good school nearby that your child can attend well then it’s much more likely that they’ll get involved on the farm in child labour,” she said.
“So a lot of what we do would be around strengthening quality education. That might be through infrastructure, building, repairing schools, equipping schools with canteens or the trains, or also helping children to attend school. So if the family doesn’t have the resources necessary to write school books or whatever then that can be something.”
She added that raising awareness within cocoa-growing communities is also critical to help families understand what constitutes child labour.
“Absolutely, so I mean obviously there’s many reasons why a farmer might rely on their children to do hazardous tasks on the farm. One area might be that they don’t necessarily understand the risks and quite a good example of that might be pesticides.
“It might not be obvious that pesticides might be more dangerous to a developing child and they are for an adult body also more dangerous to a pregnant woman than it might be for an adult. So there’s a lot around raising awareness within cocoa growing communities about what is child work, what’s okay and then what becomes child labour.”
She stressed that ICI’s activities in education, awareness and community engagement are aimed at reducing hazardous child labour and ensuring that children remain in school rather than being pushed into risky farm work.
