By Santadarshan Sadhu, Kareem Kysia, Letitia Onyango, Clifford Zinnes, Sarah Lord, Alexandre Monnard, and Ingrid Rojas Arellano

In 2010, in response to evidence of children working under hazardous conditions in the West African cocoa sector, the Governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, representatives from the International Chocolate and Cocoa Industry (Industry), and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) signed a Declaration and Framework tied to the Harkin-Engel Protocol, under which Industry publicly acknowledged child labor in the cocoa sector and committed to take steps to address it. In the signing of the Declaration and Framework, these partners committed to take action to reduce child labor and the worst forms of child labor (WFCL) in cocoa production towards the goal of achieving a 70 percent reduction in the WFCL in the cocoa sectors of the two countries in the aggregate by 2020. The Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group (CLCCG) was established to coordinate efforts among the partners working under the Declaration and Framework. The Framework lays out multiple goals to support implementation of the Declaration and further the aims of the original Protocol. Among those goals was the continuation of nationally representative child labor surveys, recurring at least every 5 years. The aim of the surveys was to provide comparable data for ongoing assessments of child labor prevalence in cocoa growing areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana and included a commitment to make publicly available the related survey methodologies, data, and reports based on the findings of these surveys. Under this goal, surveys were carried out by Tulane University during the 2008/09 and 2013/14 cocoa harvest seasons in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. In 2016, NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC) was awarded a four-year cooperative agreement by the USDOL Bureau of International Labor Affairs 1 (ILAB) to implement the 2018/2019 Assessing Progress in Reducing Child Labor in Cocoa Production in Cocoa Growing Areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana project.

Chicago: NORC at the University of Chicago. 2020. 301p.

By Allan Ngari and Duncan E Omondi Gumba

Child labour is a serious problem in the cocoa industry in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, with children often trafficked from neighbouring countries to work in the cocoa fields. This paper delves into the cocoa industry in the two countries and its challenges. It argues that multinational corporations operating in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana should be held criminally responsible for their role in cocoa production when it involves illicit activities and explores how national and regional laws can be used as a tool to do so.

ENACT (Africa), 2022. 24p.

By Roberto Sollazzo and Matthias Nowak

The tri-border area between Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mali has long been an important zone of commerce for West Africa, and a key transit route for the trade flowing between the Gulf of Guinea, the Sahara, Sahel, and Mediterranean. In recent years, however, smuggling and trafficking has risen in the subregion because of the growing demand for illicit goods and firearms. This demand is fueled by communities’ need for self-defense due to banditry and the increased presence of jihadist groups; needs of traditional hunters and non-state security providers; and the ecosystem around artisanal and small-scale gold mining in which criminals seek weapons to target the miners who in turn equip themselves with firearms for protection against attacks. These dynamics heighten the risk of insecurity and instability. Tri-border Transit: Trafficking and Smuggling in the Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire–Mali Region, by the Survey's Security Assessment in North Africa (SANA) project, takes a detailed look at the actors enabling smuggling and arms trafficking in the region, identifies the drivers of this traffic, and analyzes the impacts on local communities. The paper finds that there are three key trafficking axes in the area and that states are largely unable to control their borders and prevent these activities. The study also shows that illicit firearms are often trafficked together with other smuggled goods such as gold or drugs, using the ant trade method.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2020. 20p.