The Protection Project Journal of Human Rights and Civil Society
Such a Long Journey: Barriers to Eliminating Child Trafficking for Labor Purposes in the West African Cocoa Value Chain Anita Sheth*
Abstract Child trafficking for exploitative labor purposes in the West African cocoa supply chain has produced substantial concern for governments, industry, U.N. bodies, researchers, and non-governmental organizations. West African cocoa accounts for roughly 70% of the world’s supply and is the main ingredient in chocolate, whose average annual sales account for billions of U.S. dollars. In 2001, partially in reaction to pressure from consumers, the chocolate industry took up a call from Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Elliot Engel to address this issue and ensure that no child is exploited in the harvesting and growing of West African cocoa. They developed the Harkin-Engel Protocol with time-specific actions to ultimately impact the removal of the worst forms of child labor, including trafficking in the Ivorian and Ghanaian supply chains. This paper examines the results of the Harkin-Engel Protocol and assesses the effect it has had to date, as well as its projected impact on prohibiting child trafficking for exploitative labor use in the cocoa sector. The implementation setbacks and pitfalls of the Protocol reveal its limitations as an effective solution. This paper analyzes these liabilities and concludes by suggesting how the Harkin-Engel Protocol could be adjusted to ensure that its ultimate goal of protecting children from the worst forms of child labor in the West African cocoa farms can be realized.
*
Director, Breakthrough Impact Development. The author thanks Elaine Panter for her support in editing the paper.
53