What works in preventing child labour?

Livelihood support to reduce poverty, and enable parents to hire temporary farm workers if needed. School infrastructure and support for children to attend, such as school supplies and lunch. Easing transportation to school. Engaging the community to identify challenges and design solutions.

These were some of the findings of a significant 2021 report from NORC at the University of Chicago. That report also estimated that 1.56 million children still work on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

These figures were and are a sobering reality. While Fairtrade Standards already prohibit child labour, and Fairtrade supports livelihood improvement through mandatory minimum prices and the Fairtrade Premium as well as voluntary Living Income Reference Prices, there are still factors increase the risk of children working on farms instead of going to school.

In 2022, we adjusted our Fairtrade Standard for Cocoa to require, among other things, that cooperatives more consistently implement a child labour monitoring and remediation system. This is a costly undertaking, as it means cooperatives need to not just identify cases of child labour, but do something about them through prevention and remediation activities. It isn’t fair that farmers and cooperatives – who already bear a lot of the risk in supply chains despite having the fewest resources – should alone be responsible for these costs. That’s why we also added a requirement that traders must contribute in some way to producers’ efforts to address child labour and other human rights issues.

Fairtrade’s programme: focusing on prevention and remediation

We started the Fairtrade Child Labour and Forced Labour Prevention and Remediation Programme in 2023, as a way to direct the funding from traders and other chocolate companies into programmes designed by cooperatives themselves.

The idea was to draw on our own learnings – similar to the priorities outlined in the NORC report – to provide more support for cooperatives and their communities to tackle child labour risks and responses according to their own community needs.

The latest programme report, just released, summarises the projects for 12 cooperatives, totalling more than €300,000 over the past three years. Cooperatives also contribute some amount of co-financing to each project.

Most projects so far relate to schools, whether building new classroom blocks, renovating existing structures, or building canteens so children don’t need to travel home for lunch. So far the projects are reaching an estimated 5,000 children.

We have continued our partnership with the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) in Côte d'Ivoire, which focuses on child labour in West Africa. ICI has served as advisor for the programme, and last year conducted some trainings on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure projects. In the past year, ICI started working with Fairtrade Africa and eight cooperatives to support the construction of school WASH facilities, specifically latrines and hand-washing stations, as follow-on projects in round 3 to further improve the school environment for students.

“The most successful interventions are those that the community identifies and buys into, which is exactly what this programme supports,” said Assouan Kouame, Senior Programme Officer at Fairtrade Africa. “Fairtrade cocoa cooperatives are improving school quality for all children in their communities, and tackling some of the main drivers of child labour.”

Some project highlights: new school buildings, and a preschool for younger children

The new report highlights four cooperatives and their completed projects.

One example is the cooperative DAVO COOP CA in Gagnoa. An existing remote village school building with a palm roof leaked in the rainy season, and was too small to hold all the children, requiring morning and afternoon school shifts. With attendance much lower for the afternoon shift, DAVO wanted to expand the school and give all children the opportunity for a full day.

Thanks to €17,000 in funding, the cooperative built a three-unit classroom block, a much larger facility that protects students even on rainy days. More than 290 children benefit from the new structure.

As a follow-up project, the cooperative has been granted additional Fairtrade funds and technical support from ICI to start the construction of latrines and hand-washing stations, and a canteen for the school.

Yao Kouame Leopold sees the value of the new school and looks forward to the further improvements. “We have a three-class school in Ndrikro which means that today our children are not forced to go far. (…) [A] school canteen [will] allow children from the surrounding camps to stay on site at noon instead of traveling miles at noon to eat and come back in the afternoon.”

Another example is cooperative SCOOPS-EDIFIE-DOUKOUYA, which recognised a lack of quality child-care options in one community, causing parents to either take their small children to the farm with them, or leave them in the village. The cooperative received €17,000 to build a preschool that is benefitting 80 children. They also received follow-on funds and technical support from ICI for the construction of latrines and hand-washing stations.

“In the past, parents went to the field with a lot of concern because they didn't know where to leave their children,” said Zehi Herman Marcel, secretary of the village. “Today, with this nursery school, they can be reassured when going to work. We are happy and the community is happy.”

The completed school facilities are already making a difference in their communities, while the projects still underway are contributing knowledge and skills to cooperative staff and community members. We are carrying out an independent evaluation of the programme this year, which will be published in early 2027.

Read the new annual report on the programme here.