Child Labour News Service

The chocolate industry and federal lawmakers unveiled a four-year plan to address child slavery on cocoa farms.

The first step is to determine how widespread child slavery is, followed by establishment of pilot programs in Africa to identify the best way to improve the economic well-being of responsible cocoa farmers and ensure that cocoa is grown responsibly.

Media investigation reported in June found some boys as young as 11 were sold or tricked into slavery to harvest cocoa beans in Ivory Coast. As many as 15,000 children from some of the world's poorest countries may have been labouring on plantations across Ivory Coast, producer of 40 percent of the world's cocoa and Africa's largest coffee exporter.

The Chocolate Manufacturers Association and World Cocoa Foundation and their members, including Hershey Foods Corp., will pay for the program, which will cost an estimated $2 million.

The contributions of specific companies will depend on how many choose to participate, said Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association. "Certainly, the major chocolate manufacturers will be quite involved in the effort," she said.

Hershey Foods spokeswoman Christine Nelson said the company is "not going to divulge" how much it is contributing and referred questions to the Chocolate Manufacturers Association.

U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said in a news release that the plan would address "the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa-chocolate sector worldwide."

Participating as initial members of an advisory group to work with the industry in implementing the program are representatives of the government of the Ivory Coast, International Labour Organisation, International Union of Food and Allied Workers, the anti-slavery organisation Free The Slaves, the National Consumers League and the Child Labour Coalition.

The so-called Harkin-Engel protocol provides for the development of a credible, mutually acceptable system of industry-wide standards along with independent monitoring, reporting and public certification to identify and eliminate any use of the worst forms of child labour in the growing and processing of cocoa beans.

"Most consumers in America and around the world don't want to buy chocolate made from cocoa beans harvested by child slaves," Harkin said.

By July 2005, a public certification system will be in place to assure consumers that cocoa used in the production of chocolate is not grown with abusive child labour.