3071-The political economy of new slavery

164 Child Labour, Education and Child Rights Among Cocoa Producers in Ghana
• the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular
for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the
relevant international treaties;
• work, which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried
out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.
Child rights activists and organizations such as the ILO place a clear
emphasis on the elimination of the worst forms of child labour as
described above. Some clear-cut cases of abuse exist in Ghana, although
they are by no means as widespread as certain activists suggest. During
the entire course of my research I have encountered child trafficking
in only one cocoa village. I was not able to interview the children in
question and the information was given to me by a local farmer who is
a member of the Kuapa Kokoo Fair Trade co-operative, and had been
sensitized to the problem of child trafficking at one of their gatherings.
A small number of children from the north of Ghana had been brought
to the village by local farmers to work full-time on cocoa farms. They
worked the same hours and performed exactly the same duties as adult
labourers and received no financial reward (although I was told the
children’s families had received a one-off payment). Such practices are
clearly in breach of Convention 182 and the farmer who gave me the
information intended to act on this matter, initially by trying to resolve
it at village level, or by reporting it to the relevant authorities if this was
not successful.
I cannot make any categorical claims as to how widespread child
trafficking on cocoa farms is and I am hesitant to make any claims
that could be taken out of context and further tarnish an image Ghana
has undeservingly acquired. However, I am very confident that child
trafficking on cocoa farms in Ghana is very limited, and particularly
disproportionate to the coverage it has received. There is a definite
paucity of hard facts and reliable information on this issue, although
there is no shortage of speculation. Most sources alleging there is slavery
on Ghanaian cocoa farms cite ‘research carried out’ or make passive
statements such as ‘such practices have been uncovered in Ghana’
but fail to give sources, references, dates, or anything that could give
any substance to their claim (The Independent on Sunday, 19 May 2002).
My personal suspicion is that many of these findings are based on desk
research rather than resulting from any reliable field-based investigation.
Certainly my own research does not support the claim that the
Ghanaian cocoa industry is rife with trafficked children working in
conditions akin to slavery. However, I agree that some serious breaches
in children’s rights occur, and that any child trafficking on cocoa