International Cocoa Initiative

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The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) is an independent foundation governed by Articles 80ff of the Swiss Civil Code. The ICI is governed by a foundation board that comprises members of labour unions, civil society, and the cocoa and chocolate industry. Its work is implemented and supervised by a secretariat based in Geneva, Switzerland. The ICI is primarily funded by contributions from cocoa industry board members; however the decisions on programme direction and emphasis are made by the board as a whole. There are currently fifteen board members in total and the Board is chaired by a co-presidency that is shared between industry and civil society representatives.

Current members of the ICI are: Barry Callebaut, Cadbury Schweppes, Dignité (trade union based in the Ivory Coast), European Cocoa Association, Free the Slaves, Global March, Hershey Foods, International Confectionary Association, International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Association, International Trade Union Confederation, Kraft Foods, Mars Incorporated, National Consumers League (US), Nestlé, and a Swiss Lawyer. The International Labour Office (ILO) is advisor the Board.

The ICI was created as a result of a groundswell of opinion urging the chocolate industry to ensure child and forced labour were not used in the production of their products. An international protocol (known as the Harkin/Engel or Cocoa Protocol) was signed in Washington, D.C., by representatives of the cocoa industry and governments, while witnesses include social activists, NGOs and labour unions. Establishing the foundation was foreseen as one of the steps required by the parties to the protocol which was duely achieved in July 2002.

75% of the world’s cocoa is grown on small family farms in West Africa. Cocoa farms are generally small and unmechanised. Often the whole family works together – particularly during harvest. While enlisting a families’ help on the farm is not prohibited by local or international law, too often children undertake work that through necessity or lack of awareness exposes them to physical or moral hazards and risks. Some producers have been known to seek cheap labour with cases of the illegal use of forced child or adult labour. When children are taken from their families, even with their consent, for the purpose of exploitation this is known as trafficking and is illegal. When adults are exploited in employment, their pay withheld or under other conditions that mean they are not free to leave, this is forced labour.

Solving the complex and sensitive social issues that underlie child and forced labour requires the understanding, commitment and leadership of individual communities across the region. Understanding the complexity of the issues on the ground is essential to success. By working locally with cocoa-growing communities, ICI works to change the way cocoa is grown. Since its establishment, the ICI has collaborated with a broad range of stakeholders – from farmers to consumers groups – to identify the most efficient and effective methods to end abusive labour practices in cocoa growing.

ICI’s projects are community led. Working with communities, ICI has developed a process to sensitise farmers and community leaders to abusive labour practices and help them identify how they might work to bring these to an end. At the outset, each community creates an action plan to ensure children are not involved in hazardous practices, a mechanism for the identification and rescue of trafficked children, investment in education and youth programmes and a framework to ensure these changes become permanent.

Concretely, ICI’s programmes include specific actions to: Build awareness of the need to eliminate abusive labour practices;Actively support community based initiatives to change long-standing practices;Build local capacity to support change;Work with organisations that provide services to, or have commercial relationships with, cocoa-growing communities to foster positive change;Ensure social protection services for cases of abuse and forced labour;Channel information, report on progress and provide a new model for development;Encourage partnerships between industry, activists and governments.

In 2004, the ICI launched pilot projects in several communities in Ghana and Ivory Coast. These programmes are designed so communities take the lead in creating and implementing action plans, including initiatives that draw on existing educational and rural development programs. This pilot ensured cocoa communities themselves determine which activities best support responsible labour practices and meet their needs. After the pilot phases, programmes were extended. In 2007, ICI has conducted activities in 109 communities in Ghana, and In Ivory Coast, ICI is building on its pilot activities, with on-going projects in 21 communities.

According to latest reports, the ICI has reached 88 communities in Ivory Coast so far, since the problem of slavery in cocoa production was highlighted in 2001. Given that there are an estimated 600,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, this seems like good work, on a small scale. The problem has been that industry has not backed the ICI enough for it to make significant progress. As Aidan McQuade, director of Anti Slavery International recently said, “Now the industry needs to put its money where its mouth is, to get West African children off farms and back into school where they belong,” Crucially also, Industry has failed to deliver on the certification process, which was the centre-piece of the Harkin/Engel protocol, the agreement Industry signed up to in order to try to end the worst forms of child labour including human trafficking, in the cocoa supply chain. It was from this agreement that the ICI was born. The protocol promised that “ Industry, in partnership with other major stakeholders will develop and implement credible, mutually acceptable, voluntary, industry-wide standards of public certification, consistent with applicable federal law, that cocoa beans and their derivative products have been grown and/or processed without any of the worst forms of child labour”. In other words, industry promised to ensure that only farms which were certified as free from trafficked labour could supply the cocoa that makes our chocolate. Without industry's fulfilment of this promise, slavery will never be eradicated from the cocoa industry. Industry promised to deliver this by July 2005, it failed. Now they are changing the definition of certification so it becomes a mere survey. This is not good enough, and must be very disappointing for the work of the ICI. Without a great deal more money from this multi-billion dollar industry and also delivery on farm level certification, the ICI will continue to be good work on a small scale. Worse than this, it will be a fig leaf for industry to hide behind, claiming that they are dealing with this complex problem. It is time for change and for the ICI to stand up and demand the whole of the Harkin Engel protocol be fulfilled.