Date of publication: February 18, 2008
Source: IRIN News
Despite an international outcry in 2000 over child exploitation on West African cocoa farms, and ambitious efforts by governments since then to regulate the industry, very little has changed for an estimated 284,000 child labourers, according to campaign groups.
Between them, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire produce about three-quarters of the world’s cocoa, according to the US State Department, and they employ 200,000 children. Up to 12,000 of these have been illegally trafficked across African borders to work on Ivorian cocoa farms, according to non-governmental organisation (NGO) Stop the Traffik...