There are very few commercially managed cocoa farms of any size and most farmers continue to use traditional farming methods.  All of the work – from preparing the land, planting the trees, maintenance, harvest and primary processing – is done with manual labour, often in remote and difficult conditions.

Access to an adequate workforce at critical times during the growing season is important and, for most, the family remains the primary labour source.  At peak times, all family members, including children, are generally involved. This may not pose a problem if children are involved in age appropriate tasks, are not working when they should be in school and if they are not exposed to hazards such as chemicals, dangerous tools, etc...

Some owners cultivate their cocoa farms themselves while others use a form of sharecropping where the owner allows a tenant farmer to work the land in return for a share of the produce.  These systems can involve complex social contracts that have evolved over many years.

Whatever the system cocoa farming is labour intensive.  In poor communities in West Africa, there is real pressure to keep these costs down in order to maintain income levels.

While enlisting a families’ help on the farm is not prohibited by local or international law, too often children undertake work that through necessity or lack of awareness exposes them to physical or moral hazards and risks. For example, children are often used to carry cocoa beans on their heads to the local buying shed. While this might not in principle be hazardous, often the load is simply too heavy, the distance too long and the timing interferes with their schooling.

Some producers have been known to seek cheap labour with cases of the illegal use of forced child or adult labour. When children are taken from their families, even with their consent, for the purpose of exploitation this is known as trafficking and is illegal. When adults are exploited in employment, their pay withheld or under other conditions that mean they are not free to leave, this is forced labour.

The issues are complex and is it worth noting there is a risk that positive social customs are branded as exploitative or abusive if care is not taken to understand how the sector works at a local level.

While studies and ICI’s programmes have told much about they types of practices that exist and the causes, the scale of the problem remains ill defined. The Governments of Ghana and Ivory Coast are currently putting in place mechanisms to improve the data available which will help ICI and its partners to target efforts to the areas most in need.

Most children who work on cocoa farms do so within their family structure; however illegal or abusive practices exist and ICI is commited to working to see they are exposed and eliminated.