By Olatunji Olaigbe and Elvis Guoza
The global chocolate industry makes over $130 billion in annual revenue, but the West African farmers who cultivate nearly 70% of the world’s cocoa often survive on less than $2 (2900 naira) a day. This difference has fueled one of the most persistent human rights crises of our time: widespread child labour in the cocoa fields of Côte d’Ivoire.
Côte d’Ivoire is the largest producer of cocoa globally, cultivating approximately 40% of the world’s supply. The country’s economic fortunes are directly linked to this crop, with cocoa exports bringing in billions of dollars annually. Yet this dominance comes at a cost: a 2020 UNICEF report links poverty and inequality in the country to child labour. However, a new generation of indigenous and community-based financial models, including village savings and loans associations, financial literacy programs, and innovative impact financing, is emerging as a solution.
Cocoa got to West Africa in the late 19th century, with Côte d’Ivoire planting its first trees in the 1880s. Under colonial influence, cocoa cultivation across the region expanded in the early 1900s, and from the onset, production relied on exploitative labour practices. For example, in São Tomé and Principe, they established cocoa plantations using forced labour and enslaved workers from Angola and Mozambique. This early dependence on forced and cheap labour established a precedent that would haunt the industry for generations.
Today, cocoa trades as a global commodity on major exchanges in London and New York, where prices fluctuate based on demand, supply, weather patterns, and speculative trading. Over the years, cocoa prices were between $2,000 and $3,000 (2.9 – 4.35 million naira) per metric ton. In February 2025, the price of cocoa rose to $10,000 (14.5 million naira) per ton. While this development might have made headlines, it only briefly relieved farming families.
According to research by Fairtrade International, the average cocoa farming household in the Cote d’Ivoire earns approximately $2,707 (3.9 million naira) annually, translating to roughly $0.78 (1,130 naira) per person per day. This is below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of $2.15 (3,117 naira) per day. This poverty creates the conditions that make child labour not just possible, but economically necessary for family survival.
“One important thing to remember is that not all farmers will have benefited from the price rises for cocoa in the same way,” explains Mel Alain Didier Lath, Country Director of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), a non-profit foundation that works to protect the rights of children and adults in cocoa-growing areas in West Africa.
Countries like Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire operate a nationalized cocoa export system, with export prices set by the government, unlike free markets like Nigeria, where the market determines export prices. Prices in Cote d’Ivoire are much lower than the global market average, explains Alain. All of this contributes to poverty and inequality among farmers, which in turn fuels child labor.
In Case You Missed It
In Türkiye, Girl Villages Have Become a Lifeline for Education
To help relieve the burden of ancillary education costs such as transportation, supplies, and meals, with the ultimate goal of preventing girls from dropping out early, the Korunuck Foundation operates two housing campuses for Turkish girls where they receive comprehensive support for their studies. The programs currently serve 125 students, and 36 girls have been accepted into universities.
According to a 2020 report by the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa, a body focused on improving the living conditions of cocoa farmers and protecting natural resources, approximately 1.56 million children were engaged in child labour in cocoa-growing areas of Côte d’Ivoire, with 95% performing hazardous tasks.
The exploitation takes multiple forms. Many children work on their own family farms, brought into the fields by economic necessity. Once on the farms, these children work in conditions that meet the International Labour Organisation’s definition of forced labour: work performed under threat, coercion, or deception.
The chocolate industry has known about this crisis for decades. In 2001, the major chocolate companies signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol, pledging to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2005. That deadline has been extended many times. First to 2008, then 2010, then 2020, then again, to 2025.
Emerging response
In recent years, the Ivorian government has intensified its commitment to addressing child labour.. There have been coordinated efforts across the ministries of labour, education, and agriculture. There had also been an increase in funding for labour inspections and law enforcement, prosecuting cases of trafficking and forced labour more aggressively.
Most significantly, the government has embraced economic interventions. In 2019, Ghana and the Ivory Coast jointly implemented the Living Income Differential (LID), a $400-per-ton premium added to the price of cocoa specifically intended to boost farmer incomes toward a living wage. This was seen as an acknowledgement that child labour is an economic problem requiring economic solutions.
Another promising development is happening at the village level, where organisations like ICI are using indigenous financial models to assist farmers. Top among these are Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), called Caisses Villageoises d’Épargne et de Crédit (CFREC or AVEC) in French. VSLAs work by pumping extra funding in the form of loans and grants into pre-existing autonomous saving schemes among farmers. “We are also able to use this during non-harvest periods, where farmers are more economically challenged,” explains Alain.
VSLAs are community-managed savings and loan groups that operate in areas where formal banking is inaccessible. Members meet regularly to contribute savings to a collective pool. Members can then borrow from this pool at agreed-upon interest rates. At the end of an annual cycle, the group’s accumulated savings and profits are distributed to members according to their contributions.
VSLAs are often specifically targeted at women as part of broader gender equality initiatives. In rural cocoa communities, women typically have fewer financial resources and opportunities than men, despite playing crucial roles in household management and agricultural labour. By empowering women economically, VSLAs create ripple effects throughout families and communities.
Bediassou Anne, a grocery trader, says CFREC has enabled her to avoid problems with her kids’ schooling. Before the program, Bediassou and her husband struggled to keep their children in school due to school fees, and often had to divert the kids to help them on the farm. The program, Bediassou says, has enabled her to make enough to chip in to the family finances and send the kids to school.
“The groups and associated training and empowerment activities can help households to meet family expenses, including those related to schooling and health of their children, in addition to those relating to the farm, thereby improving child protection and helping to reduce child labour,” Alain explains.
Soukousoukou: Where Change Becomes Real
Amoa Adjoua, who has made and sold attiéké (fermented cassava couscous) for nearly 50 years, experienced perhaps the most dramatic transformation. Before joining CFREC, she manually carried 50-kilogram bags of cassava on her head and used heavy stones to press water from the cassava dough.“Today, things have changed,” she says, “ I have a machine… I also have tricycles… With my income, I am now able to send my five grandchildren to school.”
Niandatchi Amoa, who makes placali (cassava paste), joined CFREC when financial constraints limited her cassava purchases. “I joined the CFREC, and a few months later, I was able to buy large quantities of cassava since I could take out loans from the organisation.” Now she saves 5,000 CFA francs weekly (approximately $8) and can meet her five children’s needs even when her husband is away. “Under no circumstances do we go to the fields with children. There are labourers involved in maintaining our cocoa field.”
By the end of 2024, ICI said its Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems (CLMRS) covered 347,018 households. Within these systems, 44% of children found in child labour were no longer engaged in such work after two consecutive monitoring visits Yet for all the promise of these models, Alain states that improved income alone “Will not solve child labour. Farmers also need access to essential services such as health and education.”
Multiple interlocking factors drive child labour: unequal access to land, fragile livelihoods, limited access to quality education, gender disempowerment, insufficient awareness about child labour’s dangers, and shortages of adult labour, per a 2019 report by Proforest.
A Path Forward
The shift toward community-based financial empowerment represents the most promising effort yet to sever the link between cocoa production and child exploitation.
“Progress has been made over the last decade or so, with more children attending primary school, better understanding of contributing factors and effective solutions, and significant scale-up of activities to support cocoa-farming families,” the ICI Country Director acknowledges. “But more remains to be done.”
Ensuring funds reach individual families, managing ongoing market volatility, balancing global demand for cheap cocoa against farmers’ need for living incomes, and scaling proven interventions to reach millions more households all require sustained effort and resources.
Despite these challenges, VSLAs have proven to be useful tools. In a 2024 report, Unilever, working with the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, another organization, claimed to have reached 293 VSLAs with 7,925 members. Nestle, through its Income Accelerator program, claims to have established VSLA networks across 9,225 households. Each VSLA hub, Alain says, represents hundreds of kids who now have a chance to be kids.
Credits
Editing: Monday Ogar
This story was reported with support from The Pulitzer Center
The SolutionsPaper is a a multimedia outlet leveraging solutions and constructive journalism to spur civic action and participation in development issues across Africa.
