child labour

CÔTE D’IVOIRE CHILD LABOUR TRAFFICKERS ARRESTED

During an anti-trafficking operation, Côte d’Ivoire police arrested 4 alleged child labour traffickers and rescued 19 children suspected of being transported to work on cocoa plantations.

Police intercepted the transportation of 42 people from a city in northern Côte d’Ivoire called Korhogo, of which 19 were minors from the age of 12-17 years old.

According to an official, it is suspected the people were being transported from the neighbouring country of Burkina Faso to the southeastern town of Aboisso. Burkina Faso is a regular source of child slavery as one of the poorest countries in the region, families will sell their children for just a few hundred dollars, on contract to work on farms for perhaps 2 or 3 years or more.

Burkina Faso

West Africa is widely known for facing problems with underage workers and it is highly publicised that they need to do more to eradicate child labour.

Last year alone, 137 children were rescued and 12 suspected traffickers were arrested during a two-day operation in the West African country.

Officials have since received more resources and opened 6 operational centres in the main cocoa producing regions to fight against child trafficking and labour.

There is an estimated 1.56 million children working in West African cocoa production for the $100 billion chocolate industry.

Twenty years ago, the cocoa sector formally promised to ban child labour, but a decade later, the problem is actually worse.

Child labour has increased by 14% in the world’s largest cocoa producing countries – Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, according to a study released by the University of Chicago.

Major chocolate companies have committed to help eradicate this practice, but it has proved difficult to achieve.

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