Archive for the ‘Social’ Category

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How the Rainforest Alliance is supporting the struggle against child labour

13/06/2011

The 12th June was World Child Labour Day. Edward Millard, Director Sustainable Landscapes at the Rainforest Alliance talks about how the Rainforest Alliance works to prevent child labour on farms every day.

A child spraying chemicals. The Sustainable Agriculture Standard forbids children to use agrochemicals and forbids adults to spray them without protective clothing (photo credit: Agro Eco)

For the last ten years, public concern about children working illegally or being forced to do unsafe work has been closely linked to the chocolate industry. Since evidence of children being exploited in cocoa farms first reached mainstream media across the globe in 2000, consumers, politicians and activist groups have been asking the large companies what they are doing to ensure that child labour is not present in their supply chains.

In UK the issue has remained largely outside the political domain. By contrast, in the USA, two politicians, Congressman Eliot Engel and Senator Tom Harkin took an initiative to commit the industry to ensure that its chocolate was free of child labour. The resulting Harkin-Engel Protocol triggered a series of initiatives to address the problem, including forming an independent organization for education and monitoring, the International Cocoa Initiative, ICI (www.cocoainitiative.org), to which the industry gave funding support. The focus of ICI’s work has been Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s two largest suppliers of cocoa beans. Both governments passed laws and committed resources to support the effort to build awareness in communities of the need for children to attend school. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in Côte d’Ivoire, Child Labour, Cocoa, Ghana | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Eradicating child labour- how Rainforest Alliance certification can help

12/06/2010

On World Day Again Child Labour (12 June 2010), Edward Millard, Head of Sustainable Landscapes at the Rainforest Alliance looks at how certification can help protect children from exploitation.

Child in cocoa tree with machete

Employing children on farms when they should be at school or making young people undertake tasks that are dangerous or damaging to their developing bodies is clearly unacceptable practice. This was highlighted in the cocoa industry in 2001 and generated responses at government and industry level. The major chocolate companies signed an agreement with the US government to eradicate the worst forms of child and forced labour from their supply chains. They also funded an independent organisation, the International Cocoa Initiative, with the participation of trade unions and NGOs to undertake educational programmes in cocoa producing communities in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the world’s two largest cocoa producers.

Rainforest Alliance Certification supports eradicating child labour in three ways:

The root cause of abusive child labour is poverty – putting children to work instead of paying hired labour, or maybe because the parents can’t afford to send them to school. As poverty cannot be eradicated quickly, education is the key to quick improvements. Farmers who take part in training programmes for Rainforest Alliance certification also have to discuss the problems of children working and the rights of all children to attend school. Farmers do not want to put their children at risk and our training programme gives them the skills and knowledge on how to avoid it.

Child carrying cocoa pods

To obtain the rewards of certification, farmers must comply with the Sustainable Agriculture Standard. This prohibits farms from employing full- or part-time workers under the age of 15; and between 15 and 17 children must have written authorisation for employment signed by their parents or legal guardian. Workers between 15 and 17 years old must not work more than eight hours per day or more than 42 hours per week, their work schedule must not interfere with educational opportunities and they must not be assigned activities that could put their health at risk, such as the handling and application of agrochemicals or activities that require strong physical exertion. These are exactly the type of abuses that have been most commonly recorded: children carrying heavy loads of cocoa pods from the tree to the fermentation and drying centre, spraying agrochemicals without protection and climbing trees with machetes to reach the higher up pods.

To achieve Rainforest Alliance certification, each farm has to be visited by an internal auditor and an external auditor every year and random checks may occur at any time. These auditors are recruited and trained in country, not simply flow in from the developed world, with no connection to the country or understanding of its culture. This monitoring system cannot guarantee that child labour never occurs on any day of the year but combined with the education, it provides the best assurance possible. The governments also have their own monitoring system to check for incidences of child labour, so the certification auditors are supporting government policy directly by providing supplementary monitoring activity.

Child labour, though, is a complex issue. Helping the family on the farm is natural to most African children who live in the countryside, as it is in many farming families throughout the world. As long as they are not missing school or exposed to dangerous tasks, it is not difficult to argue it is wrong. The Sustainable Agriculture Standard allows minors, who are part of the family, between 12 and 14 years old, to work part-time on family farms as long as their schedule, including school, transportation and work does not exceed ten hours on school days or eight hours on non-school days. Interpreting what does and doesn’t constitute child labour requires an understanding of local culture and tradition. For this reason, Rainforest Alliance’s policy of training and accrediting auditors from Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana is vey important.

Posted in Côte d’Ivoire, Child Labour, Cocoa, Ghana | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

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Health and Safety; its a Rainforest Alliance issue too

28/04/2010

As World Day for Safety and Health at Work is marked today (28th April), we at the Rainforest Alliance continue to ensure that workers’ rights are an integral part of the certification process. Rainforest Alliance certification is built on the three pillars of sustainability — environmental protection, social equity and economic viability. No single pillar can support long-term success on its own, so we help farmers succeed in all three areas, from protecting wildlife to providing a safe working environment.

To achieve Rainforest Alliance certification strict health and safety principles have to be adhered to, such as working hours, rest periods, provision of safety equipment and sanitary facilities.

With so many smallholder tea farmers in Kenya undertaking Rainforest Alliance certification, the Kenya Tea Development Agency has set up a microfinance institute to support farmers achieve certification, which includes meeting strict health and safety standards. Greenland Fedha Ltd provides affordable financing to small-scale tea farmers for farm inputs.

Greenland Fedha was launched just eight months ago and already provided the finance for four tea factories to source 16,000 sets of personal protective equipment for their smallholder farmers to purchase. With such health and safety requirements being met, two of the four factories are now Rainforest Alliance Certified, whilst the other two are currently undergoing certification. For the farmers this not only means a safer working environment; but the improved working conditions leads to increased productivity, less worker complaints and improved quality, which ultimately results in improved profitability and competitiveness.

Kenya’s coffee industry is also making changes to ensure the rights of workers are met. Kandara has just become Kenya’s first cooperative of smallholder coffee producers to become Rainforest Alliance Certified. As part of achieving certification, Kandara made investments at washing level station through Mars Drinks’ Brighter Tomorrow at Origin programme.

Mars Alastair Child, who works with the global sustainability team recently visited the Kandara cooperative and told us: “The work on health and safety was very evident. I saw modifications to processing machinery since my last visit, as well as workers with personal protective equipment. There was also plenty of signage indicating fire extinguishers, first aid points and safe walkways. We are delighted that as a result of their hard work, the cooperative successfully achieved Rainforest Alliance certification.“

Posted in Ariculture, Health & Safety, Kenya, Social, Tea | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

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A comic look at child labour.

15/04/2010

But there’s nothing funny about child labour I hear you say.  And this comic is as serious as any communication, report, conference or law aimed at preventing the use of child labour on coffee farms in Latin America.  David Dudenhoefer recently returned from a visit to El Salvador where he visited a group of coffee farms who have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance.  Read here about what he found and how the Rainforest Alliance is making an innovative use of comic books to help educate farmers about the issues surrounding child labour and how they can ensure that in compliance to Rainforest Alliance certification they are not using children on their farms.

The article, published on the ISEAL website opens with a simple and compelling statement: “Around 5.7 million children work in the Caribbean and Latin America, according to the ILO. Girls do domestic chores while boys work in agriculture – work that can involve razor-sharp tools, power machinery and pesticides. Both interfere with schooling and the normal playtime of youth. Here we focus on a cooperative in El Salvador that our member Rainforest Alliance helped buck the trend by using a simple comic book.”

Posted in Child Labour, Coffee, El Salvador | Tagged , | 1 Comment »

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Working with cocoa farmers in West Africa

01/04/2010

Rainforest Alliance senior trainer, Edmond Konan, with one of the cocoa cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire; credit Bettina Mueller-Roettig

You may have seen the recent BBC Panorama programme, The Bitter Truth of Chocolate, which addressed issues of child labour in the cocoa growing regions of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.  As more and more chocolate being sold on the UK’s high street is bearing credible certification marks such as the Rainforest Alliance’s green frog seal you may be wondering what we are doing in West Africa to work with cocoa farmers to help improve their livelihoods, living standards and tackle the issue of child labour.

The Rainforest Alliance promotes the Sustainable Agriculture Standard and certifies farms and groups of small holder farmers that comply with this Standard. We have been working in Côte d’Ivoire for four years and in Ghana for two. To become Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa farmers spend about six months preparing for a certification audit. During this time they receive training in the Standard, which comprises a range of socially and environmentally responsible practices, as well as good agricultural practices. At any one time we have between 12 to 15 trainers working in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Principle 5 of the standard has detailed criteria about employment conditions, including children working on farms. These criteria have been cross referenced to the law in both Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, so that farmers, group managers and auditors are all aware of the requirements of both the law and the certification Standard. Specifically, the Standard:

·    Prohibits direct or indirect employment of full- or part-time workers under the age of 15 or the minimum legal age, whichever is higher
·    Requires farms contracting minors between the ages of 15 and 17 to keep detailed records of length and type of work carried out (they may not work more than eight hours per day, apply any agrochemicals or undertake any tasks affecting their health or safety), they must ensure remuneration is received and the permission of the parents or guardians is obtained
·    Allows minors between 12 and 14 years old to work part-time on family farms, only if they are family members or neighbours in a community where minors have traditionally helped with agricultural work. The schedule for these minors including school, transportation and work must not exceed ten hours on school days (including the time they spend in school) or eight hours on non-school days, and farm work must not interfere with educational opportunities.

For the full text, see www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture

The Rainforest Alliance certification system supports the elimination of child labour in three ways:

Woman farmer, Daloa, Côte d’Ivoire; women take part in the training program and are very conscious of their children’s welfare.

1.    Through the training programme it builds awareness among farmers and communities of the welfare of their children. I have taken part in training programmes where farmers stood up and told how they now realized the importance of educating their children and not exposing them to unhealthy or unsafe work in cocoa farms, such as carrying heavy loads or using a machete.  From the UK to Africa to Australia, farmers are famously reluctant to change what they and their ancestors have always done, so hearing this makes me realize our approach can work.
2.    Rainforest Alliance specifically collaborates with the International Cocoa Initiative and the Sustainable Tree Crops Programme, which are in turn supporting government efforts to educate cocoa growing communities about child welfare and monitor employment practices.
3.    The certification system requires continuous visits to farms by internal inspectors and an annual external audit to record employment practices. It provides an incentive to farmers to comply with the standard by offering new market opportunities once they become certified.

In spite of our vigilance and care, sometimes abuse can slip through this education and verification approach. It is impossible to monitor every cocoa farm every day of the year. For this reason, the Rainforest Alliance does not claim that its certification system is a guarantee. In countries where poverty and traditions drive unacceptable employment practices in several industries, no credible system can make such guarantees. But the combination of education and auditing is the best assurance possible that child labour is not present in a Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM farm.

We are very careful to ensure that cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms remains separated from cocoa from non-certified farms throughout the supply chain.  We require certified cocoa to be documented and separated as it is distributed through the supply chain from farmer to group to exporter to importer and processor. This chain of custody system enables the manufacturer of a cocoa or chocolate product using the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal to know that the cocoa supplied to its factory has not been mixed with cocoa from non certified sources.

Tackling issues of child labour in West Africa is one of our greatest challenges.    But by increasing the number of farms that achieve Rainforest Alliance certification, we are working with other NGOs, government agencies and international bodies to educate farmers and eliminate the use of children on cocoa farms. The best incentive for farmers to embrace the Sustainable Agriculture Standard, which includes many other social and environmental requirements that help improve quality of life, is if they have a secure market and can sell their crops to forward-thinking companies like Kraft and Mars. That’s where consumers come in.  So look out for the green frog seal.

Edward Millard

Director, Sustainable Landscapes

Rainforest Alliance

Posted in Agriculture, Côte d’Ivoire, Child Labour, Cocoa, Ghana, Social | Tagged , | 1 Comment »

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