“With the formalisation of employment contracts between cocoa producers and workers initiated by ICI, it is now a real relief for everyone.”
These are the words of Pierre Koudougou, who has been a group administrator for four years at the Société Coopérative de Production et de Transformation de Produits Agricoles (SOCOOPEM) in San Pedro, speaking about the importance and role played by the Human Rights Committee (HRC) within cooperatives and communities. These committees are supported by the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), which, through a pilot project, aims to test and adapt new approaches, tools and mechanisms for preventing, identifying and responding to the risks of forced labour in five targeted cooperatives and their beneficiary communities.
What is forced labour in cocoa?
Forced labour is defined as work that is done involuntarily and under the threat of penalty. In practice, this means that both an absence of consent and the threat of penalty are required to make it a case of forced labour.
In cocoa, common indicators for:
An absence of consent includes workers doing tasks that were not specified at the time of recruitment, working for longer hours than was specified, or performing tasks for other employers.
- The menace of penalty includes withholding a salary or retaining identity documents.
- All stakeholders involved need to understand what forced labour looks like in cocoa today, and the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers.
For children, forced labour is understood as working because of a penalty (or the threat of one) from someone other than the parent. This could be a threat to the child or to the parent. At times children are considered in forced labour because their parents themselves are in forced labour.
According to agricultural cooperative leaders and traditional authorities in these localities, many conflicts between producers and workers arose from the lack of formal employment contracts. Many disputes concerned the exact content of the tasks to be performed by workers, which were not always recognised by the latter. As a result, community-based cooperative human rights committees now play a central role in promoting and respecting the rights of workers and producers. Awareness-raising activities are held weekly in the communities to inform them about the risks of forced labour and promote the use of employment contracts.
According to Thomas Regtoumda, Group Administrator at the Gnato Agricultural Cooperative Society (SOCAG),
“everything is now clear in the employment contracts, which puts an end to the misunderstandings that used to exist between producers and workers.”
Producers can no longer withhold their workers' wages abusively and with impunity. This is because the latter knows his rights and how to lodge a complaint with the human rights committee.
"Now, with the employment contracts provided by ICI, my employee and I are very careful. This is because the contract was signed in the presence of two witnesses. My employee can summon me to the village chief if I fail to fulfil my duties towards him. And I can also terminate his contract if he does not respect what we both signed," said Oumarou Sawadogo, a cocoa producer since 2019 in Youkou, a village in Djourouto in the department of Tabou.
The situation is the same in the villages of Soukoura (Méagui) and Massata (Tabou). Rouné Brou Kouamé has been working in Thomas Kouamé's cocoa field for over a year. Here in Massata, his employment contract was signed in the presence of two witnesses. Since then, he says there have been no major difficulties between him and his employer. “I get two days off and my pay is regular and respected,” he told us. The witnesses, who are signatories to the contracts, can intervene as a first resort to resolve disputes between producers and workers.
Gilbert Thé Thaud, Village Chief of Youkou, welcomes the smooth functioning of the Human Rights Committee. Many disputes have been resolved by the committee, of which he is a member.
“Now, contracts are signed in due form. We would be delighted to see these contracts extended to other crops.”
“In the event of a dispute, the HRC is called in and finds solutions,” explains Didier Oupayou, focal point for complaints and grievances within the HRC in Youkou. When he receives complaints, mostly from workers, his role is to listen to them, record them in a register and on a tablet, and then forward them to the human rights committee, which is made up of ten members, including seven community members.
As a reminder, since 2019, ICI has been committed to combating forced labour in cocoa-growing communities, with the aim of improving the living and working conditions of agricultural workers.
In implementing the pilot project in five cooperatives and their communities, the organisation has set up several activities, including training and support for awareness-raising campaigns on forced labour, the provision of employment contracts between producers and workers with the obligation to include witnesses at the signing, and the establishment of Human Rights Committees.
With members from both the cooperatives and the community, these committees oversee and manage the prevention, identification and handling of cases of violations of workers' and human rights.
To learn more about employment contracts to prevent forced labour risks, click here.