Why Swiss chocolate makers can’t win the battle against child labour

KEYSTONE

Swiss chocolate makers have committed to ending child labour in their supply chains by 2025. They will not succeed on their own, says a group of experts from Geneva. 

Around 1.56 million children work in cocoa production. That’s the finding of the most comprehensive survey of cocoa growing households (around 90% of cocoa is grown by smallholder farmers) published by the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) at the University of Chicago in 2020 . In cocoa-growing areas, 38% of children in the Ivory Coast and 55% of children in Ghana living in agricultural households were engaged in child labour in cocoa production.  

Zurich-based chocolate-maker Barry Callebaut has committed to cover its entire supply chain by Human Rights Due Diligence by 2025 and remediate all child labour cases identified. Nestlé and Lindt & Sprüngli have also promised to achieve full traceability of their cocoa supply chain to individual farms by 2025. However, researchers from the University of Geneva recently published a white paper analysing the root causes of child labour and conclude that companies cannot succeed on their own.   

SWI swissinfo.ch spoke to the authors of the report who gave a joint response. 

SWI swissinfo.ch: There has been progress in reducing child labour in cocoa plantations but companies seem to have hit a brick wall. For example, one in three children in the Ivory Coast still work on family farms in cocoa-growing areas, compared to over one in two children in 2005. Why has progress stalled in the last decade? 

Berit Knaak and Dorothée Baumann-Pauly (BK and DBP): The reasons are complex. Never before have chocolate companies been more ready to acknowledge that child labour remains a concern and to commit resources to address the issue. However, interventions from the private sector often cluster around geographic regions that are conveniently accessible. This means they leave other more remote farming communities behind where child labour risks are likely even greater. 

Also, companies tend to work on their individual supply chains instead of collaborating with industry peers and other key stakeholders to develop a comprehensive strategy for a sustainable solution. Such a company-by-company approach has limitations because it will not address systemic challenges.  

Berit Knaak (left) and Dorothée Baumann-Pauly Laurent Guiraud

In a similar manner, the governments of the Ivory Coast and Ghana often support the work of civil society organisations but rarely work more closely with foreign governments. There appears to be not just a lack of coordination, but also a lack of understanding the interconnectedness of drivers for child labour. Addressing only one aspect without considering the many factors that drive the phenomenon will not yield the desired results of reducing and eventually eliminating child labour. 

SWI: Monitoring plays a huge role when it comes to tackling the child labour problem in the cocoa sector. How is this possible in remote or cross-border areas with Ghana or Burkina Faso, which are becoming the new frontiers of cocoa cultivation? 

BK and DBP: Up to one quarter of the Ivorian cocoa production is estimated to be currently non-traceable. New cocoa-growing areas have developed in remote areas in the western regions of the Ivory Coast, which are not easily accessible.  

Companies are now required by the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive to apply a risk-based human rights due-diligence approach, meaning they need to focus on parts of their value chain where risks to people are likely to be the most significant. New technologies could facilitate identifying high-risk areas for child labour. Going forward with our research, we plan to look into earth observation satellite and geospatial data to map potential high-risk areas. But this will just be the first step. The data needs to be verified in the field. And still then, addressing child labour requires understanding the complex root causes; only then can a comprehensive and viable remediation strategy be developed. 

SWI: Is there not a danger that zero tolerance for child labour in cocoa will push children to more hazardous sectors like mining? 

BK and DBP: Many companies indeed work with zero-tolerance policies for child labour, out of concern that anything else would be misunderstood as accepting child labour. However, addressing child labour requires to some extent a pragmatic approach that acknowledges the realities in cocoa farming communities. A zero-tolerance policy sets incentives to avoid addressing complex root causes and to merely treat the symptoms in order to get quick results. Even worse, companies might give up the sourcing relationship altogether due to their zero-tolerance policy, without starting any attempt to remediate the problem. In this case, zero-tolerance policies can push children into searching employment elsewhere out of economic necessity, for example in the informal sector or other industries (such as artisanal gold mining) that are arguably more dangerous. 

SWI: You’ve advocated in your recent study to move away from individual root causes of child labour toward interconnected causes. Can you explain what this means with an example? 

BK and DBP: Our researchExternal link shows that child labour is never the result of just one root cause but of an ecosystem that makes it more likely. Addressing the issue therefore also requires working on multiple interconnected root causes.  

For example, providing access to education requires providing the physical infrastructure (a weather-appropriate building, furniture, and teaching material), finding and financing (and possibly housing) a qualified teacher, and arranging transportation to school – all of these tasks arguably require the competence of different stakeholders.  

Even if education is available, it is only accessible if children have a birth certificate, which comes with its own set of challenging administrative requirements. Another example is common health issues in cocoa farming communities, such as malaria or diseases due to the lack of clean drinking water. If farm workers are unable to work, it is often their children who step in. Mitigating this risk involves dealing with the accessibility, affordability, and quality of health care.  

SWI: Countries like the Ivory Coast and Ghana earn millions of dollars from exporting cocoa beans to places like Switzerland. Shouldn’t their governments and cocoa boards also shoulder the responsibility of tackling child labour? 

BK and DBP: Shared responsibility implies that all stakeholders work together on a strategy that can effectively address the child labour problem, and that includes government actors too. Governments in producer countries have a key role in preparing an ecosystem that enables children to, for example, access education by facilitating the provision of birth registrations, by training teachers, and by defining school curricula.  

SWI: Switzerland has been a member of the International Cocoa Agreement since 1972. This aims to promote exchange and cooperation between consumer and producer countries. What can the Swiss government do to tackle child labour in one of its most strategic industries?  

BK and DBP: Effective since January 1, 2022, the Swiss Ordinance on business and human rights (DDTrO) explicitly outlines the expectations for companies that operate in supply chains that are at risk of involving child labour. Swiss companies that do business with high risks of child labour – such as companies in the cocoa sector – are required to conduct full human rights due diligence, which means that they must establish supply-chain traceability and define steps to identify, mitigate and remediate child labour. The first reports for companies under this new legislation are due in 2024 (covering 2023) and if companies fail to report or provide false information, they can be fined up to CHF100,000 ($113,235).   

Beyond legislation, the Swiss government could advance the elimination of child labour by working directly with the governments in the two main cocoa-producing countries, Ghana and the Ivory Coast. They could use their collective convening power to bring together the key stakeholders in the cocoa industry and help to set up and coordinate landscape approaches, which address child labor holistically in high-risk regions.  

Switzerland, like no other country in the world, represents the chocolate industry and the Swiss government should lead innovative efforts to address child labour in the cocoa supply chain. 

Edited by Virginie Mangin/gw