Striving for a Child Labour Free World

One Organisation’s Efforts to End Child Labour

It is a sad but true fact that child labour still happens in our world today. Child labour occurs in many industries but especially the cocoa industry. One organisation trying to journey the road to a child labour free world is UTZ.

Siriki Diakité, UTZ Regional Representative for West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire explains why guarantees are impossible – but that UTZ is leading efforts to eradicate child labor. “If we just stop the child working on a cocoa farm child labor will end up being hidden, or we’ll see the child moving to the rubber farm next door, or to a nearby factory. That’s why UTZ has an approach that combines prevention, monitoring and remediation – going beyond sanctions and forming partnerships with other initiatives to find real solutions.”

They believe that one way to overcome child labour is to tackle the root cause – poverty. Many farmers are not earning enough to support to suport their families. The UTZ program is training farmers so that they are able to increase productivity as well as helping them to understand the importance of children having an education Read more…