No Love For Chocolate Producers

This column was written by Jeremy Kahn.

So far, the sins of van de Keuken's sweet tooth haven't landed him in the slammer. But his hijinks are well-timed: Today is Valentine's Day, a key holiday for chocolate sales, and van de Keuken at least made headlines. Every year since 2001, when stories first surfaced about child slavery on cocoa plantations in Côte d'Ivoire — where about 40 percent of the world's cocoa is currently produced — activists have used Valentine's Day as an occasion to push for a boycott on chocolate. Their concern makes sense: A 2001 U.N. Children's Fund study estimated that as many as 200,000 children were trafficked for labor within the region. A survey conducted jointly by the International Labor Organization and the chocolate producers in Côte d'Ivoire the following year estimated that perhaps 5,000 to 10,000 children were used as indentured or slave labor on the country's cocoa plantations; many thousands more were working for family members but subjected to harsh manual labor inappropriate for their age.

Yet, while the boycott drive is well-intentioned (if decidedly unromantic), it is also wrong. It is true that abusive child labor continues to plague cocoa production. But calls for a boycott would harm the very children the activists are trying to help. In truth, the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire is currently a greater obstacle to ending child labor in the chocolate business than any other factor, including the chocolate companies. If consumers really cared about ending child slavery in Côte d'Ivoire, they would direct their protests less at the makers of chocolate turtles and more at Turtle Bay.

In 2001, amid pressure from consumers and international labor groups, the world chocolate industry signed an accord aimed at combating illegal child labor. Under that agreement, known as the Harkin-Engel protocol, chocolate producers pledged to introduce a certification system by 2005 that would guarantee that cocoa had been harvested without using child slaves. But, in September 2002, Côte d'Ivoire plunged into a civil war that has left the country split in two, with the government controlling the south and a rebel coalition controlling the country's north. Since then, a kind of cold peace — with occasionally violent flare-ups — has taken hold. Some 8,000 U.N. peacekeepers and 4,000 French soldiers currently separate the warring parties.

Although actual combat between the two sides has only been sporadic over the past four years, the instability and the de facto partition of the country has hampered any efforts to educate farmers and monitor the cocoa harvest. The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), the industry-funded foundation that, in accordance with the Harkin-Engel Protocol, is charged with stamping out the worst child labor practices, has managed to launch pilot programs in just six Ivorian communities (compared with 24 pilot programs in Ghana, which is at peace). Also, the chocolate industry had hoped to rely on Ivorian government inspectors to police labor practices on the farms.

But the government has been in such chaos since the war began that few inspectors have been trained — and even those available have not been permitted to work in the rebel-held north. The same goes for representatives of the chocolate industry and a variety of labor rights NGOs: Their travel to the north has also been restricted due to safety concerns. In October, Peter McAllister, the ICI's executive director, cited Côte d'Ivoire's civil war as a "major hindrance" to developing programs in the country. There's not much the industry can do: It missed its 2005 deadline to create a certification system, and it has negotiated an extension until 2008, by which time it promises to implement monitoring for just half the cocoa-producing areas of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

Until stability returns and Côte d'Ivoire's north and south are reunited, there is little chance that efforts to improve child labor conditions will gain much momentum. But reconciliation remains a long way off. Numerous peace agreements between the government and the rebels, brokered under the auspices of the United Nations, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have quickly collapsed. The country's president, Laurent Gbagbo, has repeatedly antagonized the opposition by refusing to relinquish key powers to a temporary power-sharing government.

Meanwhile the rebel forces repeatedly have balked at disarmament. Plans for new elections, a key milestone toward reconciliation, have twice been postponed — first from October 2005 to October 2006, and now again to October 2007. Another round of negotiations, sponsored by ECOWAS and aimed at implementing the existing peace agreements, are currently under way in Burkina Faso. (The outgoing head of the U.N. mission to Côte d'Ivoire, the Swedish diplomat Pierre Schori, has warned the two sides: "Don't blow it this time. There won't be any more excuses.")

And, yet, while most of the blame for the ongoing stalemate rests with Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro, the United Nations and the members of the Security Council haven't exactly stepped up to the plate. Schori, in an interview with UPI, complained that, when he took over the U.N. mission, he received no recommendations from his predecessor and that the U.N. effort originally lacked urgency.

Hoping to prove that "African solutions to African problems" can work, the Security Council has tended to take a back seat in any negotiations to ECOWAS and the African Union. The Security Council has since intervened with sticks: It imposed an arms embargo on the country in 2004, and it threatened to ban the travel and seize the assets of key players on both sides if peace talks were not resumed.

But carrots — economic aid and security guarantees — could work, and the Security Council has been slow to offer them. The United States in particular has been reluctant to get involved, even though it might be able to serve as an honest broker in a way that Burkina Faso (where the rebels found sanctuary before the abortive 2002 coup that started the civil war) or France (which has been accused of supporting the rebellion and which has the baggage of being the country's former colonial master) cannot. A political settlement — not a chocolate boycott — ought to be the focus for labor and human rights groups, because only with peace can the industry police its farms.

In the near term, a boycott of chocolate would also hurt, not help, many poor Ivorian farmers — and their children. Agriculture accounts for 27 percent of the country's GDP. And, while it is true that country's cocoa farmers receive just a fraction of the price a consumer pays for a piece of chocolate (most of the money goes to marketing and processing costs), cocoa sales are still all many farmers have to live on

. Already, because of the controversy over child labor and the civil war, Côte d'Ivoire's share of the world cocoa market has fallen. And the war has badly hurt the country's economy: It has tumbled from 156th to 164th out of the 177 countries ranked by the U.N. Development Program's annual Human Development Index. What's more, fully 45 percent of its population now lives below the poverty line, compared with 30 percent before the civil war began. That includes a lot of children, since it is estimated that 42 percent of the country's 18.5 million inhabitants are younger than 15. That's why responsible children's rights groups, like the Canadian arm of Save the Children, have stopped short of endorsing a chocolate boycott.

Other children's rights advocates should follow suit. It's all well and good to nudge chocolate producers toward better labor practices despite the ongoing conflict. But until peace and stability return to Côte d'Ivoire, a boycott on chocolate isn't going to keep children from slavery or fill their stomachs. (In fact, for now, cocoa sales may be one of the few things keeping many Ivorian children from starving.) But, in at least one respect, Teun van de Keuken, is right: When you bite into the delicious bon bon your lover gave you today, you really should feel guilty — about the calories.

By Jeremy Kahn
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