You better go in disguise, well... it's good advice if you're actually going to the cocoa plantations of West Africa and reporting on the horrendous child labour situation going on behind the scenes, fuelling our nation's addition to chocolate.
[Chocolate: the bitter truth on BBC iplayer avail unil Wed 31st March]
Like many people the element of shock is still resonating with me. The one hour documentary last night told the compelling story of a twelve year old boy from Burkina Faso reunited with his mother after being trafficked into forced labour; a flagrant disregard of international child labour conventions.
The programme showed how easy it is to buy cocoa from unregulated farms and sell them into the supply chain without traceability: without paperwork to show the validity of their reputable (or otherwise) origin. Child labour is contrary to the ILO (International Labour Organisation) standards of Fairtrade. Some cooperative farms had also been found using child labour and were suspended. They no longer provide cocoa under the Fairtrade label.
And as you'd expect, the FLO (Fairtrade Labelling Organisation) and several of our favourite chocolate brands agreed that they need to ramp up their efforts to ensure that all their farms are free of the 'worst forms of child labour'. Which basically means that if a child works on a farm they shouldn't be carrying out hazardous tasks and should be attending school. These are standards that the FLO already expect and audit regularly, with severe penalties if they are not met.
The programme did a really good job of highlighting the realities of cocoa production. And I think for many there will be a huge shock factor which will serve to make people think twice before buying an easter egg from the supermarket. But if we just leave it there, then we might miss a really important issue.
The fact that the reporter, Paul Kenyon, went undercover speaks volumes of the level of corruption and fear involved in bringing something of this nature to light. Clearly there are forces larger than the ILO or the Beeb at work, and no amount of well intentioned western policy is going to change that. Throw in some cultural issues as well and you start to realise that regulation ain't as simple as it first seems. Yes, it's in everyones benefit that FT works, and there's countless examples of how it does. And that's good and that's worth celebrating. But in terms of shifting cultural patterns, this has to come fromthe communities involved in cocoa production. Where the real long lasting change will happen is when the benefits of keeping a child in school instead of sending them to climb a tree with a macheté are realised. And that might be a very costly decision for some families, because the situation at present is that there is a very clear trade-off between education ...
and survival.
Perhaps if this cultural change happened, then maybe the need for child labour would be eradicated. And maybe if corruption at various levels was exposed then penalties for trafficking would actually be enforced and the attraction of buying and selling people would be eliminated.
So I would argue, we need more. We need more than Fairtrade rules to say 'No' to child labour. We need cooperation from the grass roots level to the international arena. And unfortunately it will take time. But for the sake of one boy called Fatao there is hope of a childhood. That, frankly is a miracle.
The Fairtrade Organisation have published their official statement here.
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