2.3 million children work in the cocoa fields of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
These children are vulnerable to brutal labor practices, including trafficking and slavery.
Candy companies--including but not limited to Nestlé, Hershey, Cargill, Cadbury, and Barry Callebaut--have admitted accountability and promised to remedy this situation. Sadly, 20 years has passed since this agreement and little has changed.
Additionally, the abject poverty these farmers are forced to endure in has also resulted in deforestation of sensitive and important national forests.
The candy industry is a US 70-billion-dollar industry. It should have changed.
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Chocolate consumers have real power. Let's use it together to help these children.
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Traffickers arrested in Ivory Coast operation targeting child trafficking and forced labour.
More than 48 children have been rescued and 22 people arrested following the first operational phase of Project AKOMA, targeting child trafficking and exploitation in Côte d’Ivoire.
Project AKOMA is the first joint initiative between INTERPOL and International Organization for Migration to fight child trafficking and exploitation in West Africa.
The operation was backed by the First Lady’s office, the Minister of State for Employment, Social Affairs and Vocational Training and the Minister for Solidarity, Family, Women and Children as well as senior regional officials.
Officers from INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau (NCB) and Regional Bureau in Abidjan assisted in coordinating the operation, along with the Ivorian Inter-Ministerial Committee against human trafficking.
The operation also involved specialist officers from INTERPOL’s Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation (HTCE) unit.
Their reinsertion center in The Ivory Coast is featured on this news story about child labor in the cocoa industry. For more information and how you can help see CREER-Africa