General Agricultural Workers’ Union of Ghana (GAWU) Deputy General Secretary Andrews Addoquaye Tagoe was recognized last month by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) for his role in advancing child and worker rights and for reducing child labor in Ghana’s agricultural industry.
“Where the union is present, child labor is absent,” Tagoe said about GAWU’s campaign to end child labor on Ghana’s cocoa farms.
Alarmed by increasing child labor in Ghana and Ivory Coast cocoa production, GAWU is addressing child labor in cocoa farming communities by applying a child-labor-reduction model honed in fishing communities on Lake Volta. The program raises awareness and incomes of parents so that kids can stay in school.
Although the cocoa industry’s biggest companies pledged to eradicate the “worst forms” of child labor in their supply chains nearly 20 years ago, up to 2 million children are estimated to be engaged in cocoa production in West Africa—primarily in Ghana and Ivory Coast. The two countries together supply roughly 60 percent of the world’s cocoa beans. As cocoa production in both countries has increased, so has child labor.
The profitable global chocolate market last year was worth $132.65 billion, with three major global chocolate brands together earning almost $4 billion in profits from chocolate sales while a fourth global brand’s confectionery profits totaled $2 billion. The four corporations on average paid out 97 percent of their total net profits to shareholders in 2023, reports Oxfam. Meanwhile, up to 58 percent of cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana were living below the World Bank extreme poverty line in 2021 and up to 90 percent did not earn a living income. According to the Child Labor Coalition, of which the Solidarity Center is a member, the cocoa industry must pay a living income while scaling up programs that identify child laborers and ensure that children can go to school.
”Building worker voice at local and national levels for farmers to benefit from higher cocoa prices and the profitable global chocolate industry will help end child labor, says GAWU.
Children in Ghana are subjected to the worst forms of child labor, including in fishing and cocoa production, reported USDOL in 2022. More than half of children living in agricultural households in Ghana are reportedly engaged in child labor, most in at least one form of hazardous child labor.
By organizing and formalizing the agricultural economy in rural areas and working with communities to eliminate child labor, Tagoe has developed and implemented child labor free zones resulting in ‘withdrawal of thousands of children in rural communities from the worst forms of child labor,’ said Thea Lee, USDOL Deputy Secretary for International Affairs at the award ceremony.
“An Africa without child labor is possible,” Tagoe said in his acceptance speech.
Tagoe was co-recipient of the 2024 USDOL’s Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor with Egyptian civil society organization Wadi El Nil. The award honors its namesake, a Pakistani child sold into slavery at age four to work as a carpet weaver and who, after escaping at age 10, became an outspoken public advocate against child exploitation and died tragically at the age of 12.
Watch a Solidarity Center video about GAWU’s fight against child labor in cocoa production.
A recent study by NORC at the University of Chicago found that child labor in Ghana and Ivory Coast cocoa production increased 14 percent in less than a decade, demonstrating the urgent need for more effective and inclusive interventions, says the General Agricultural Workers’ Union of Ghana (GAWU). GAWU is reducing child labor in cocoa farming communities by applying a child-labor-reduction model honed in fishing communities on Lake Volta that raises awareness and incomes of parents so kids can stay in school.
“Where the union is present, child labor is absent,” says GAWU Deputy General Secretary Andrews Addoquaye Tagoe about a new video produced with Solidarity Center support. He points to the successful long-term GAWU child labor interventions in fishing communities in Kpando Torkor and, more recently, child labor reduction programs in cocoa farming communities, for which GAWU received an international labor rights defender award this year.
Girl opening a cocoa pod with a sharp machete in a GAWU child labor video
Up to 2 million children are engaged in cocoa production in West Africa, primarily in Ghana and Ivory Coast. The two countries together supply about 70 percent of the world’s cocoa beans. As cocoa production in both countries has increased—by 62 percent during the past decade—so has child labor. In Ghana, 55 percent of children living in agricultural households are reportedly engaged in child labor, more than 90 percent of them engaged in at least one form of hazardous child labor.
Using the collective power of farmers and their families, communities, anti-child labor clubs, school authorities and local leaders to fight child labor in more than 180 cocoa farming communities in the Ashanti, former Brong-Ahafo, Central, Eastern, Volta and Western, regions, GAWU’s 30,000 cocoa farmer members are:
Building worker voice at the local and national levels for farmers to benefit from higher cocoa prices and the profitable global chocolate industry
Negotiating collective bargaining agreements with Ghana’s Cocoa Board that establish binding commitments to producing child-labor free cocoa
Creating child-free labor zones and Community Child Protection Committees who enforce child labor legislation
Working through cocoa farmer cooperatives to produce cocoa byproducts and developing skills for non-farm economic activities to generate income that covers children’s school-related expenses
Supporting and sending children to bridge schools that provide academic support to children withdrawn from child labor and prepare them to reintegrate into mainstream schools
Girls in Torkor village walking to school in a GAWU child labor video
The union’s child labor reduction Torkor model is finding success, says Tagoe, because it represents the multiple intervention and community-based approaches that the NORC report findings say are key. The $103 billion cocoa industry’s current approach—which includes the expenditure of $215 million on voluntary certification programs during the past decade even as child labor prevalence continued to rise—represents the industry’s failure to fulfill its longstanding promise to eradicate child labor from its supply chains.
Unions are at the heart of sustainable, effective interventions because they engage community leaders, including women and youth, in their design and implementation, as recommended by NORC and the Child Labor Coalition. “We are driven to step up our organizing efforts and help new and current members work with community partners to fight child labor in cocoa,” says Tagoe. “Agriculture without child labor is possible.”
According to the Child Labor Coalition, of which the Solidarity Center is a member, “The industry needs to focus on paying a living income while also rapidly scaling up programs that identify child laborers and ensure that children are able to go to school.”
GAWU is the largest trade union representing formal- and informal-sector farmers and agricultural workers in Ghana, and an affiliate of Solidarity Center partner Trades Union Congress-Ghana (TUC-Ghana) and the International Union of Food, Hotel, Tobacco, Restaurant and Allied Workers (IUF).
Watch the video:
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