Always Left Holding the Bag
The Economic Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic
on Cocoa Farmers and Children in Côte d’Ivoire

Corporate Accountability Lab& Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains

December 2021

This report is a collaboration between Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) and Mouvement
Ivoirien des Droits Humains (MIDH).
Suggested Citation: Always Left Holding the Bag: The Economic Impacts of the COVID-19
Pandemic on Cocoa Farmers and Children in Côte d’Ivoire, Corporate Accountability Lab &Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains (December 2021).

Table of Contents
Executive Summary

2

Cover Picture: Children carrying cocoa beans on their heads. December 2019.

Recommendations for Multinational Cocoa and Chocolate Companies

4©2021 Corporate Accountability Lab. All rights reserved. All contents displayed in this document
or on this page, including downloadable materials, are subject to the terms and conditions of
the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License and Version
1.1 of the CC+CAL Commercial Use License Agreement.

I.

5

Design by Tutaev Design.

Methodology

II. The Impact of COVID-19 on the Price of Cocoa and the Cocoa
Supply Chain: A Volatile Market and the Living Income Differential

6		 The Cocoa Supply Chain

6

		 The Living Income Differential

9III. The Impact of COVID-19 on Farmer Poverty

14

IV. The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child Trafficking

17

V. The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child Labor

24

VI. The Way Forward

29

Executive Summary
In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic upended global trade. Across the world, people“sheltered in place” as shops, schools, workplaces, and restaurants closed, travel came to a halt,
and supply chains – including the cocoa supply chain – went into a frenzy. Suddenly, cocoa
farmers’ livelihoods, already precarious in normal times, became even more uncertain.

farmers had difficulty accessing inputs like fertilizers and pesticides that increase
yields. Cocoa farmers also struggled to export and sell their cocoa, as farmers
and cooperatives faced challenges transporting cocoa to the ports for export,
especially with Abidjan isolated from the cocoa-growing regions.

3.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Child Trafficking:

4.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Child Labor:

For decades, multinational companies have reaped massive profits while cocoa farmers have
lived on poverty wages. Most farmers in Côte d’Ivoire earn under the World Bank’s poverty lineof $1.90 per day. Farmers are often unable to support their families on such low incomes, muchless pay adult workers fair wages. As a result, farmers generally hire migrant workers at very low
wages, rely on their children to help on the farms – or, in some cases, buy trafficked children.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the Ivorian cocoa industry in myriad ways. This reportexamines four key aspects.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Price of Cocoa and the Cocoa

1. Supply Chain:

The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of the
Living Income Differential (LID) in October 2020 led to a volatile cocoa market formuch of 2020 and 2021. In October 2020, the Ivorian and Ghanaian governments
implemented the LID, an extra $400 per ton of cocoa above the farm gate pricemeant to give farmers additional income. Yet companies quickly found ways to
avoid paying the full price, buying up large quantities of cocoa on the futures
exchange and using the alleged decrease in demand from the pandemic as an
excuse to negotiate lower prices with the Ivorian government. Although the
LID remains in place as of November 2021, companies successfully negotiateddown the overall price they must pay, ultimately depriving Côte d’Ivoire of muchneeded revenue.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Farmer Poverty:

2. The initial wave of the pandemic in spring 2020 led to a decrease in farmer income
as it became more difficult to produce and sell cocoa. Because farmers are paidso little for their cocoa, any decrease in income hits them especially hard. Such aloss can make it difficult for farmers to buy food for their families or pay for theirchildren to attend school. When Côte d’Ivoire shut its borders in March 2020, thecountry went into lockdown and the country’s largest city, Abidjan, was isolated
from the rest of the country to control the pandemic. During those first few
months, in the small growing season, many cocoa farmers had difficulty producing
and selling cocoa and often earned less than in previous seasons. Production
suffered as migrant workers from Mali and Burkina Faso could no longer legallycross the border to work on cocoa farms, leading to a labor shortage, and cocoa

2

Although Côte d’Ivoire’s borders with Mali and Burkina Faso were closed formuch of 2020 and 2021, during the pandemic children continued to be trafficked
into Côte d’Ivoire and sent to work as forced laborers on cocoa farms. With theborders closed, trafficking across the border became more clandestine, withchildren reportedly crossing into Côte d’Ivoire at night on motorcycles insteadof during the day on buses. Once in Côte d’Ivoire, trafficking patterns continued
largely unchanged during the pandemic, with children bused south to cocoagrowing regions where they were forced to work on farms without pay, or weretold that payment was given to their traffickers, who would deliver it to theirfamilies in their home countries. Although the number of children in forcedlabor is unknown, these children are spread across the cocoa-growing regions ofCôte d’Ivoire. Recent enforcement actions by the Ivorian government, as well as
evidence collected during our investigations, suggest that trafficking and forcedlabor are ongoing issues.

While the impact of the pandemic on child labor will likely not be known for anumber of years, there are signs that child labor may have increased during theearly months of the pandemic. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Côte d’Ivoirein March 2020, schools across the country closed for two months as the country
went into lockdown. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of child labor had
already been high and had even increased over the previous decade. With schools
closed from March to May 2020, many parents brought their children to the cocoa
farms with them as a form of childcare, almost certainly increasing child labor
rates nationwide. Once at the farm, children assisted parents in a variety of ways,
often including using machetes, carrying heavy loads, or spraying pesticides– all forms of hazardous child labor. When schools reopened in May 2020, not
all children returned to the classroom, as many parents could not pay for theirchildren’s education because of decreased cocoa production.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many of the challenges that have existed in the Ivoriancocoa industry for decades. So many of these challenges result from companies paying too little
for cocoa and pushing the risk of a bad harvest – or a global pandemic – onto cocoa farmers
who already live under the World Bank’s poverty line. To address the issues of a volatile cocoa
market, farmer poverty, forced child labor, and hazardous child labor, companies must take on
the risk and responsibility themselves by providing transparency in their supply chains down to
the farm level, paying a living income, and committing to long-term contracts.
3

Recommendations for Multinational
Cocoa and Chocolate Companies
Companies must make their supply chains transparent and1. publicly available.

This includes publicly releasing information about all cooperatives, pisteurs, andfarms that they source from. While many companies have taken a first step byreleasing the names of the cooperatives from which they source, they must also
release information down to the farm level on their direct supply chains andprovide full sourcing information on their indirect supply chains. If companies do
not have this information, they must immediately take steps to trace their supply
chains down to the farm level and make this information public.

Companies must pay the full Living Income Differential (LID)

2. and the country premiums immediately and must move toward
the Living Income price over the next eighteen months.

The Voice Network has calculated the current Living Income farm gate price inCôte d’Ivoire to be $3,166 USD per metric ton of cocoa produced, a significant
increase over the 2021-22 farm gate price of approximately $1,450 per metric ton.
Extreme poverty forces farmers to rely on illegal forms of labor to survive, andsometimes just to pay off the prior season’s debts. Chocolate companies havepurchased cocoa at or below the cost of production for decades. Companies must
pay a high enough price that farmers can afford to produce cocoa legally andsupport their families.

I. Methodology
Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) partnered with the Ivorian non-governmental organization
Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains (MIDH) to produce this report. This report is based ondesk research and three field investigations carried out in 2020.
The investigations focused on the northern border region of Côte d’Ivoire near Mali andBurkina Faso and the cocoa-growing regions in Côte d’Ivoire. Throughout the investigations,
we spoke with cooperative managers, farmers, children, teachers, community members, bus
company employees, and soldiers. This report brings together information collected during
these investigations, all of which took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Carrying out theseinvestigations during a pandemic likely impacted our ability to interact with certain people andimpacted how communities viewed us. Some people were reluctant to speak with strangers
during a pandemic due to their fear of catching COVID-19. Because travel was more limited
during this period, our team was more visible during these investigations, impacting how
communities viewed and interacted with us.
This report is not statistically representative. It is based on conversations and observations.
The aim of this report is to provide a better understanding of how the pandemic has impacted
cocoa farmers, cocoa workers, children, and others in cocoa-growing communities. It also aims
to explain how multinational cocoa and chocolate companies responded – or failed to respond– to the crisis.

Companies must provide long-term contracts at fixed prices to

3. cocoa farmers.

Farmers bear the burden of market volatility, whether driven by commodity prices
or by changes in demand. This generates economic precarity and indebtedness,
which are both drivers of hazardous child labor and forced labor. Long-term,
fixed-price contracts shift the majority of general market risk from farmers backonto companies, and distribute the remaining risk of volatility to supply chain
actors who are better situated to absorb it. This results in greater stability andaccountability across the supply chain.

45

II. The Impact of COVID-19 on the Priceof Cocoa and the Cocoa Supply Chain:
A Volatile Market and the Living Income
Differential
The Cocoa Supply Chain
Chocolate is a multi-billion-dollar industry, worth over $137 billion in 2019.1 Yet most farmers
in Côte d’Ivoire, the largest cocoa producing country in the world,2 earn under the World Bank’s
poverty line of $1.90.3 Farmer poverty is a direct result of the low prices that multinational
companies pay for cocoa.4 Because farmers earn so little, they are often unable to pay adult
workers a fair wage. Hardly able to scrape by, they sometimes hire migrant workers from Malior Burkina Faso who work for very low wages and who have been referred to as “the mostmarginalized actors in the cocoa supply chain.”5 Alternatively, farmers may rely on family
members, including their children, and in some cases on illegal forms of labor such as traffickedchildren.

in Côte d’Ivoire was $1.59 USD (€1.35) per kilogram, external costs amounted to $6.79 USD(€5.75) per kilogram, for a total “true price” of $8.38 USD (€7.10) per kilogram of cocoa, or fourtimes the price at the time.6 The vast majority of this price gap was attributed to underpaymentof workers and under-earning of family workers, deforestation and land degradation, andreliance on child and forced labor.7
The low price that companies pay for cocoa beans also results in farmers retaining little of thevalue in the cocoa supply chain. Cocoa farmers earn just 6.6 percent of the price of a cocoa bar,
while manufacturers like Nestlé and Mars earn on average 35.2 percent and retailers such as
supermarkets earn an average of 44.2 percent.8 The low percentage farmers earn highlights
the precariousness of cocoa farmers’ economic situation and the skewed distribution of profits
across the supply chain.

 
Despite earning large profits, cocoa and chocolate companies externalize many of theirproduction costs, passing them onto producing countries, cocoa farmers, and the mostvulnerable in the cocoa supply chain. According to a 2016 study, when the price of cocoa beans
Global Chocolate Market Report 2020: Market to Reach US$182.090 Billion by 2025, Increasing from US$137.599 Billion in
2019, ResearchAndMarkets.com, Dec. 7, 2020, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201207005451/en/GlobalChocolate-Market-Report-2020-Market-to-Reach-US182.090-Billion-by-2025-Increasing-from-US137.599-Billion-in-2019--ResearchAndMarkets.com#:%7E:text=The%20global%20chocolate%20market%20is,food%20products%20across%20
the%20globe.
Corporate Accountability Lab, Empty Promises: The Failure of Voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives to Improve
Farmer Incomes in the Ivorian Cocoa Sector, July 2019, p. 1, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5810dda3e3df28ce37b58
357/t/60f195f189c21a24009bd762/1626445305506/Empty+Promises+Report+2019+Final+1.pdf. Côte d’Ivoire produces
around 2.1 million tons of cocoa each year. Antonie C. Fountain & Friedel Huetz-Adams, Cocoa Barometer 2020, 2020, p. 22,https://www.voicenetwork.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-Cocoa-Barometer.pdf [hereinafter Cocoa Barometer].
Cocoa farmers’ income depends on a number of factors, including the size of their cocoa farm, the farm gate price inany given season, and the amount of cocoa produced each year. Despite variations, it has been estimated that many
cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire earn under $1.00 per day. See, e.g., Ghovind Bhutada, Cocoa’s bittersweet supply chain in one
visualization, World Economic Forum, Nov. 4, 2020, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/cocoa-chocolate-supplychain-business-bar-africa-exports/ [hereinafter Cocoa’s bittersweet supply chain]. The World Bank poverty line is $1.90.
See, e.g., R. Andres Castaneda Aguilar, et al, September 2020 global poverty update from the World Bank: New annual poverty
estimates using the revised 2011 PPPs, World Bank Blogs, Oct. 7, 2020, https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/september2020-global-poverty-update-world-bank-new-annual-poverty-estimates-using-revised.
Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, pp. 7–8.
International Labor Rights Forum, The Fairness Gap: Farmer Incomes and Root Cause Solutions to Ending Child Labor in
the Cocoa Industry, Dec. 2014, p. 3, https://laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications/Fairness%20gap_low_res.pdf(“[T]hese workers are even more impoverished than the producers that employ them. Since smallholder farmers makepoverty incomes themselves, they have very little leftover to pay their hired laborers. Field research in Côte d’Ivoire revealed
that hired workers receive poverty level wages. ILRF surveys revealed that hired workers receive between $209 and $1045
per year, which is far below the minimum wage set by the government (around $4 per day, or $1460 per year, although it isset lower for agricultural workers).”).

1

2

3

4
5

6

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While retailers eat into amajority of earnings fromcocoa sales, farmers areamong the lowest earners.
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IDH & True Price, The True Price of Cocoa from Ivory Coast, 2016, p. 3, https://trueprice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/TPCocoa.pdf.
Id.
Cocoa’s bittersweet supply chain, supra note 3.

7

The cocoa supply chain is long and opaque. Farmers often sell their cocoa to cooperatives (orto middlemen called pisteurs who sell it to cooperatives), which in turn sell the beans to othermiddlemen who transport them to ports for export. After exporting cocoa, exporters sell the
cocoa to processors, who winnow, roast, and grind cocoa beans to produce cocoa liquor, cocoa
butter, or cocoa cakes.9 Once processed, the cocoa product is sold to manufacturers (often brands)
who produce chocolate bars, chocolate chips, baking chocolate, and other chocolate products.

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

Since March 2020, the price of Ivorian cocoa has fluctuated greatly, rising with the implementationof the Living Income Differential (LID), and dipping in the spring and summer of 2021. The
Ivorian and Ghanaian governments regulate the lowest price that can legally be paid forcocoa by setting the farm gate price each season.13 The farm gate price is the lowest price thatcompanies can pay for cocoa beans, although many companies act as though it is a ceilingrather than a floor. Companies can, and in rare cases do, pay a higher price.14
In 2019, the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana announced that they planned to implement
the LID in October 2020.15 The LID added $400 per ton to the farm gate price of cocoa, with thegoal of putting more money into farmers’ pockets.16 Despite the volatile cocoa market resulting
from the pandemic, the LID went into effect in October 2020 and increased the farm gate pricefor Ivorian cocoa by 21 percent to 1,000 CFA francs ($1.80) per kilogram, or $1,800 per ton.17
With the LID, farmers earned about 20 percent more in the 2020-21 main growing season thanthey had during the 2020 mid-season harvest, or 70 percent of the price floor of $2,600 per ton.18
This price increase was significant for cocoa farmers for the 2020 main growing season, but it
was merely a small first step and did not provide farmers with a living income, defined as    

Between 50 and 80 percent of all cocoa continues to be purchased through unofficial channels
rather than through cooperatives.10 Some farmers sell part of their cocoa to cooperatives andthe rest to pisteurs, while others may sell another farmer’s cocoa as their own to receive apremium from a certified cooperative.11 Pisteurs often travel to villages and cocoa farms andbuy cocoa directly from farmers, bypassing the cooperative system. They may pay for cocoa
in cash and sometimes pay less than the farm gate price,12 the floor price set by the Ivoriangovernment for all cocoa sales. This cocoa is generally co-mingled with cocoa from otherfarms and cooperatives, making it untraceable, which in turn allows illegal forms of labor andenvironmental abuses, including forced child labor and farming in protected forests, to occur inthese indirect supply chains.
9 Id.
10 Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 30 (stating that “approximately half of the cocoa is still bought via indirect supply chains
and the involved companies do not know its origin. Therefore, they do not know if the cocoa comes from illegal plantationsin protected areas or is connected to human rights abuses.”); Oliver Nieburg, Fair game: How effective is cocoa certification?
Confectionerynews.com, Dec. 20, 2017 (updated Sept. 28, 2021), https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2017/12/20/
Fair-trade-How-effective-is-cocoa-certification (stating that “[o]nly 20-30% of cocoa farmers in the main growing nation
Cote d’Ivoire are part of a group or co-op…”).
11 Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 43.
12 Abdel El Makhloufi, et al., Towards a Sustainable Agro-Logistics in Developing Countries: The Case of Cocoa’s Supply Chain in
San Pedro Region/Cote D’Ivoire, 77, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Sept. 2018, https://documents1.worldbank.
org/curated/en/735521553488355096/pdf/Towards-Sustainable-Agrologistics-in-Developing-Countries-Cocoa-SupplyChain-in-Cote-D-ivoire.pdf.

8

The Living Income Differential

the net annual income required for a household in a particular place to afford a decent
standard of living for all members of that household. Elements of a decent standard ofliving include: food, water, housing, education, health care, transport, clothing, and otheressential needs including provision for unexpected events.19
According to the Voice Network, for cocoa farmers to be able to earn a living income, the farm
gate price in Côte d’Ivoire must reach at least $3,166 in the 2021/2022 cocoa season.20
13 Other cocoa-growing countries, including Nigeria, Cameroon, and Indonesia, determine prices either by market forces orimport prices. See Nienke Oomes et al., Market Concentration and Price Formation in the Global Cocoa Value Chain, pp. 42, 97,
Nov. 15, 2016, SEO Amsterdam Economics, https://www.tonysopenchain.com/resources/uploads/2019/03/2016-79_Market_
Concentration_and_Price_Formation_in_the_Global_Cocoa_Value_Chain.pdf.
14 Tony’s Five Sourcing Principles, Tony’s Chocolonely, https://tonyschocolonely.com/us/en/our-mission/serious-statements/
the-5-sourcing-principles; ABOCFA, Uncommon Cacao, https://www.uncommoncacao.com/abocfaghana.
15 The Conseil Café Cacao (CCC) regulates the price of cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire. Like its equivalent institution in Ghana, the Ghana
Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), the CCC sets the price of cocoa and coffee for export.
16 Maytaal Angel, et al., Ivory Coast, Ghana strike first cocoa deals with living income premium, Reuters, Sept. 13, 2019,https://www.reuters.com/article/cocoa-west-africa-pricepremium/ivory-coast-ghana-strike-first-cocoa-deals-with-livingincome-premium-idUSL5N2644FR.
17 Ange Aboa, Ivory Coast raises 2020/21 cocoa farmgate price by 21%, Reuters, Oct. 1, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/
us-cocoa-ivorycoast/ivory-coast-raises-2020-21-cocoa-farmgate-price-by-21-idUSKBN26M79F [hereinafter Ivory Coast
raises 2020/21 cocoa farmgate price by 21%]; Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 22.
18 Ivory Coast raises 2020/21 cocoa farmgate price by 21%, supra note 17.
19 Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 39, citing Global Living Wage Coalition, Living Income, https://www.globallivingwage.org/
about/living-income/.
20 Voice Network,“Necessary Farm Gate Prices for a Living Income: Existing Living Income Reference Prices are Too Low Consultation
Paper for the 2020 Cocoa Barometer,” Jan. 2020, p. 2, https://www.voicenetwork.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/200113Necessary-Farm-Gate-Prices-for-a-Living-Income-Definitive.pdf [hereinafter Necessary Farm Gate Prices for a Living Income];
Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 52.

9

The Living Income Story

The fact that companies earned larger profits in 2020 did not stop them from trying to avoid
paying the LID. Hershey was one of the first big companies to find a way around paying theextra $400 per ton on some cocoa. In November 2020, Hershey began to buy up cocoa on theIntercontinental Exchange (ICE Exchange),24 eventually buying as much as 30,000 tons.25 This
was a very unusual move, as chocolate companies usually buy physical cocoa from traders andprocessors.26 In fact, Hershey bought so much cocoa that the company was required to obtainspecial permission from the exchange for the transaction.27 Hershey allegedly saved about $200
per ton of cocoa by buying cocoa on the futures market.28
Hershey’s attempt to avoid paying higher prices to cocoa farmers set off a fight between thecocoa-producing countries and the company. In late November 2020, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana
temporarily canceled all of Hershey’s “sustainability” schemes,29 money-making schemes that“certify” cocoa as allegedly free of labor and environmental abuses and allow companies tosell chocolate at higher prices.30 Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire also accused Blommer, a Chicagobased company that processes much of Hershey’s chocolate, of assisting Hershey to avoid
paying the LID.31 (The West African countries reinstated the sustainability schemes in December
2020.)32

Source: Living Income Community of PracticeMoreover, this price increase did not last. While many companies publicly supported the
LID, some discreetly tried to undermine it.21 These companies used the apparent decrease indemand for chocolate during the early months of the pandemic as an excuse not to pay the
LID.22 While the pandemic negatively impacted many industries, media reported that chocolate
consumption actually increased during the pandemic, as people looked for small luxuries toenjoy at home. Many companies’ 2020 profits show an increase over 2019, suggesting thatdemand, at least for major brands of chocolate, increased.23
21 Maytaal Angel & Ange Aboa, UPDATE 1-Ghana, Ivory Coast threaten to suspend cocoa companies’ sustainability schemes,
Reuters, Nov. 20, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/cocoa-poverty-conference/update-1-ghana-ivory-coast-threatento-suspend-cocoa-companies-sustainability-schemes-idUSL1N2I60LS.
22 Demand decreased at the beginning of the pandemic, in the second quarter of 2020. However, sale rebounded by theend of the third quarter of 2020. For instance, The Hershey Company increased its sales revenue by over 4 percent in2020 despite a 19 percent dip in its refreshment product sales. See, e.g., Emiko Terazoo & Neil Munshi, Choc waves: howcoronavirus shook the cocoa market, Financial TimeS, https://www.ft.com/content/37aa0ac8-e879-4dc2-b751-3eb862b12276[hereinafter Choc waves]; Coping with Covid-19: Candy and chocolate sales surge during coronavirus, VENDING TIMES, Sept. 1,
2020, https://www.vendingtimes.com/news/candy-and-chocolate-sales-surge-during-coronavirus/; Lydia Dishman, How
Hershey’s Turned Uncertain Times Into Sweet Success, Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 5, 2021, https://www.uschamber.com/co/
good-company/the-leap/hersheys-pandemic-growth; see also Sweet Insights: State of Treating 2021, National Confectioners’
Association, https://candyusa.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2021_State-Of-Treating_Bite-Sized-Taste.pdf.
23 Pandemic pumped up 2020 chocolate sales: Packaged Facts, Candy Industry, May 24, 2021, https://www.candyindustry.com/
articles/89745-pandemic-pumped-up-2020-chocolate-sales-packaged-facts (stating that a report by Packaged Facts founda 12 percent increase in chocolate sales in 2020 to $27 billion); “Tectonic shift” in confectionery purchasing during COVID-19 assales hit US$36.7B, highlights NCA, Food Ingredients 1st, Mar. 12, 2021, https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/tectonicshift-in-confectionery-purchasing-during-covid-19-as-sales-hit-us367b-highlights-nca.html (stating that sales of chocolategrew 4.2 percent in 2020); Hershey Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2020 Financial Results; Provides 2021 Outlook,
PRNEWSWIRE, Feb. 4, 2021, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hershey-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year2020-financial-results-provides-2021-outlook-301221704.html.
10

In winter 2020-21, many big cocoa and chocolate companies publicly claimed to support
the LID while engaging in various strategies to circumvent it. Companies continued to buy
physical cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, but behind the scenes they negotiated with thegovernments for discounts and, in some cases purportedly changed buying and production
patterns. The Ivorian and Ghanaian governments accused Mars of changing its buying patterns,33
Olam of decreasing the amount of Ivorian and Ghanaian cocoa in its products,34 and Mondelez of
24 Ben Winck, Hershey drove a record spike in cocoa prices after reportedly sourcing beans from the futures market instead ofphysical sellers, Markets Insider, Nov. 23, 2020, https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/news/hershey-cocoafutures-record-spike-commodity-futures-market-ice-exchange-2020-11-1029831388 [hereinafter Hershey drove a record
spike].
25 Reuters Staff, U.S. company Hershey grabs cocoa stocks from exchange, avoids African price premium, Reuters, Nov. 20, 2020,​​https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cocoa-hershey-delivery/u-s-company-hershey-grabs-cocoa-stocks-from-exchangeavoids-african-price-premium-idUSKBN2802X5.
26 Isis Almeida, Hershey Is Behind Big Cocoa Trade That Upended N.Y. Markets, Bloomberg, Nov. 20, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2020-11-19/hershey-is-behind-the-big-cocoa-trade-that-upended-n-y-markets.
27 Hershey drove a record spike, supra note 24.
28 Emiko Terazono, Hershey’s buys cocoa futures as tensions with African producers grow, F inancial T imes , Nov. 20, 2020,
https://www.ft.com/content/0e55b4da-5a7e-47da-b65e-bcd2cfda401c.
29 Ange Aboa & Maytaal Angel, Ivory Coast, Ghana cancel cocoa sustainability schemes run by Hershey, Reuters, Nov. 30, 2020,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cocoa-poverty-dispute/ivory-coast-ghana-cancel-cocoa-sustainability-schemes-runby-hershey-idUSKBN28A227.
30 Id.
31 Id.; Isis Almeida, Baudelaire Mieu & Leanne de Bassompierre, In a Global Chocolate War, It’s Hershey Against West Africa,
Bloomberg, Nov. 30, 2020 (updated Dec.1, 2020), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-30/top-cocoagrowers-hit-back-at-hershey-with-ethical-programs-ban [hereinafter In a Global Chocolate War, It’s Hershey Against West
Africa].
32 Christian Peña, The war on cocoa: Hershey Co. accused of not upholding sustainability efforts in West Africa, NBC News,
Dec. 12, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/war-cocoa-hershey-co-accused-not-upholdingsustainability-efforts-west-n1250798.
33 In a Global Chocolate War, It’s Hershey Against West Africa, supra note 31.
34 Id.
11

trying not to pay the LID by making bids that did not take the LID into account.35 All companies
have denied these allegations.36
The Ivorian and Ghanaian governments accused Mars of changing its buying patterns,
Olam of decreasing the amount of Ivorian and Ghanaian cocoa in its products, andMondelez of trying not to pay the LID by making bids that did not take the LID into
account.

discounts of $212-$283 per ton.43 This discount came out of the country differential that Côted’Ivoire charges for the quality of its beans, a premium that is usually between $99 and $212
and is separate from the LID.44 While the LID was still added to the season’s cocoa price, the“discount” on the country premium essentially canceled out the price increase from the LID and
cut into the government’s revenue from cocoa sales.45
As of October 2021, farmers earned only 825 CFA francs ($1.45) per kilogram, or $1,450 per
ton,46 a mere 46 percent of a living income, while cocoa companies continue to benefit
disproportionately from the global chocolate trade.

By January 2021, multinational companies were reportedly asking Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana
to postpone deliveries of cocoa from October-December 2021 to January-March 2022.37 Withcocoa beans sitting at the ports, exporters had no more space to store cocoa, leaving the cocoa
to be stored at farms and cooperatives – and filling up their own storage facilities, making it
difficult for cooperatives to buy more cocoa from farmers.38 By late February 2021, Côte d’Ivoire
had begun to sell cocoa at discounts of about $280-$350 (£200-£250) a ton.39 The government
had no choice but to cut the price, as about 100,000 tons of cocoa piled up in warehouses inCôte d’Ivoire.40
In April 2021, the Ivorian government cut the price of cocoa by 25 percent. While the LID
remained in effect, the price of cocoa for the 2020-21 mid-crop season dropped from 1000 CFA
francs to 750 CFA francs per kilogram,41 even less than the 2020 mid-crop season price before
the LID was implemented.42 Moreover, by the end of May, Côte d’Ivoire was giving exporters

35 Leanne de Bassompierre, Top Cocoa Grower Accuses Mondelez of Backtracking on Farmer Pay, Bloomberg, June 18, 2021,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-18/top-cocoa-grower-accuses-mondelez-of-backtracking-on-farmerpay-kq2oa64r.
36 Id.; In a Global Chocolate War, It’s Hershey Against West Africa, supra note 31.
37 Ange Aboa, Ivory Coast faces 100,000-tonne cocoa bean pile-up as demand slows, R e u t e r s , Jan. 13, 2021,
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ivorycoast-cocoa-stocks/ivory-coast-faces-100000-tonne-cocoa-bean-pile-up-asdemand-slows-idUSKBN29I0PV; Anthony Myers, Cocoa beans remain stockpiled at Cote d’Ivoire’s ports as demand plummets,
Confectionarynews.com, Jan. 14, 2021, https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2021/01/14/Cocoa-beans-remainstockpiled-at-Cote-d-Ivoire-s-ports-as-demand-plummets [hereinafter Cocoa beans remain stockpiled].
38 Cocoa beans remain stockpiled, supra note 37.
39 James Trigg, Côte d’Ivoire – Do new EU laws promise sweet success or a bitter aftertaste?, Global Risk Insights, March 20, 2021,
https://globalriskinsights.com/2021/03/cote-divoire-do-new-eu-laws-promise-sweet-success-or-a-bitter-aftertaste/; Ange
Aboa, Ivory Coast seeks to sell 100,000 tonnes of cocoa as buyers haggle, Reuters, Feb. 22, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/
article/ivorycoast-cocoa/ivory-coast-seeks-to-sell-100000-tonnes-of-cocoa-as-buyers-haggle-idUSL8N2KS4LE [hereinafter
Ivory Coast seeks to sell 100,000 tonnes of cocoa].
40 Ivory Coast seeks to sell 100,000 tonnes of cocoa, supra note 39.
41 See Reuters Staff, Ivory Coast lowers 2020/21 mid-crop cocoa farmgate price by 9%, R euters , March 31, 2021,
https://www.reuters.com/article/cocoa-ivorycoast/ivory-coast-lowers-2020-21-mid-crop-cocoa-farmgate-price-by-9idUSL8N2LT1OE [hereinafter Ivory Coast lowers 2020/21 mid-crop cocoa farmgate price by 9%]; Chloe Taylor, ‘It’s difficult
to feed our families’: Volatile cocoa prices are pushing West African farmers further into poverty, CNBC, Nov. 2, 2021,
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/02/volatile-cocoa-prices-are-pushing-african-farmers-further-into-poverty.html[hereinafter It’s difficult to feed our families].
42 See Ivory Coast lowers 2020/21 mid-crop cocoa farmgate price by 9%, supra note 41; Reuters Staff, Ivory Coast holds cocoa
mid-crop farmgate price at 825 CFA francs/kg, Reuters, March 31, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/ozabs-us-cocoaivorycoast-estimate-idAFKBN21I1V8-OZABS [hereinafter Ivory Coast holds cocoa mid-crop farmgate price at 825 CFA francs/kg].

12

43 Ange Aboa, Ivory Coast sells 2021/2022 cocoa contracts after wrangle over premium, Reuters, June 8, 2021, https://www.reuters.
com/article/ivorycoast-cocoa/ivory-coast-sells-2021-2022-cocoa-contracts-after-wrangle-over-premium-idUSL5N2NQ43C[hereinafter Ivory Coast sells 2021/2022 cocoa contracts].
44 Reuters Staff, Ivory Coast, Ghana push cocoa industry to boost premium payments, Reuters, May 13, 2021, https://www.reuters.
com/world/africa/ivory-coast-ghana-push-cocoa-industry-boost-premium-payments-2021-05-13/; Ivory Coast sells
2021/2022 cocoa contracts, supra note 43.
45 Ivory Coast sells 2021/2022 cocoa contracts, supra note 43.
46 Ivory Coast lowers 2020/21 mid-crop cocoa farmgate price by 9%, supra note 41; It’s difficult to feed our families., supra note 41.

13

III. The Impact of COVID-19 on Farmer
Poverty
The COVID-19 pandemic hit Côte d’Ivoire in mid-March 2020, as the mid-crop harvest was about
to begin. During the mid-crop harvest, which runs from April to September, farmers produce
about 30 percent of the year’s total cocoa production.47 While the price of cocoa remained thesame as in 2019 – at 825 CFA francs48 – many farmers produced less cocoa, resulting in a drop
in income. According to farmers and cooperatives interviewed for this report, the differencein production varied, ranging from a couple hundred kilograms less (530 kilograms in 2020
compared to 700 kilograms during the 2019 harvest) to half as much (1 ton in 2020 compared to
2 tons in 2019) to less than a third (259 kilograms of cocoa in 2020 compared to 1000 kilogramsin 2019).49

Farmers lost income during the pandemic due to a number of factors:• A labor shortage• An inability to access inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers• Difficulty selling beans• Difficulty transporting beans to ports for export

Because of border closures, fewer migrant workers entered Côte d’Ivoire in spring 2020, leading
to a labor shortage and decreased yields on cocoa farms. As the president of the Capressa
farmer cooperative in Abengourou explained, with the borders closed, “We can’t do farm work
the way it should be done so production will be [affected].”50 The impact of this labor shortage
on farmers was “disastrous,” as it made it more difficult for farmers to pay school fees for theirchildren, buy food, or pay for adequate housing for their families.51
Some farmers could not afford inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers during the 2020 midcrop season, which also led to decreased production. Prior to the pandemic, many farmers
already had difficulty accessing credit to buy inputs.52 During the early months of the pandemic,
farmers reported that inputs such as pesticides and fertilizer has become more expensive.

47 Ivory Coast holds cocoa mid-crop farmgate price at 825 CFA francs/kg, supra note 42.
48 Id.
49 During this period, from May to August 2020, cocoa arrivals at ports in Cote d’Ivoire decreased by 5.4-6.5% each month. See
ICCO, Cocoa Market Review, May 2020, https://www.icco.org/wp-content/uploads/ICCO-Monthly-Cocoa-Market-ReviewJune-2020.pdf; ICCO, Cocoa Market Review, June 2020, https://www.icco.org/wp-content/uploads/ICCO-Monthly-CocoaMarket-Review-May-2020.pdf; ICCO, Cocoa Market Review, July 2020, https://www.icco.org/wp-content/uploads/ICCOMonthly-Cocoa-Market-Review-July-2020.pdf; ICCO, Cocoa Market Review, Aug. 2020, https://www.icco.org/wp-content/
uploads/ICCO_Monthly_Cocoa_Market_Review_August_2020.pdf.
50 Choc Waves, supra note 22.
51 Id.
52 Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 44.

14

Farmers’ inability to access pesticides and fertilizers was likely exacerbated by the fact thatmost multinational companies pulled their employees out of the cocoa regions – the necessary
choice given that their employees could spread COVID-19 to rural areas.53
Additionally, during the 2020 mid-crop harvest cocoa farmers had difficulty transportingand selling their cocoa, there were delays from buyers purchasing beans, and cooperatives
faced security issues, including the risk of being robbed while transporting the beans.54 One
cooperative manager explained that it had become more expensive to transport the beans to
the ports, which meant the transport costs cut into farmers’ income. Because Abidjan, which
has a large port, was closed off from the rest of the country to stop the spread of COVID-19
to rural areas, some cocoa farmers were forced to sell their beans at low prices to pisteurs. The
director of a cooperative near Soubré explained that the cooperative’s expenses had increased
because it had to pay to transport the cocoa beans to the San-Pedro port instead of to Abidjan.

53 Id., p. 42; Richard Scobey, Cocoa and chocolate companies help farmers fight the coronavirus and beyond, Confectionary
news.coM, Apr. 13, 2021, https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2020/04/13/Cocoa-and-chocolate-companies-helpfarmers-fight-the-coronavirus-virus-and-beyond.
54 Security issues while transporting cocoa beans is a common problem in Côte d’Ivoire. Robbers, commonly called “coupeursde route,” are rampant in cocoa production areas.

15

Moreover, because of some cooperative’s lack of liquidity, some cooperatives were unable tobuy all the beans farmers produced. Similarly, farmers in Abengourou, who usually sell cocoafrom the mid-harvest season to pisteurs from Ghana, were unable to do so because the borders
were closed and the pisteurs did not arrive. While these pisteurs likely smuggle the cocoa beans
across the border to sell at a higher price – an illegal practice – the absence of the smuggling
routes made it even harder for cocoa farmers to earn a living.

IV. The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemicon Child Trafficking

Farmers also reported that multinational companies did not assist them during this period-assistance upon which farmers are dependent due to the low farm gate price. According to thedirector of a cooperative near Soubré, multinational companies did not provide adequate aid
to farmers during the early months of the pandemic. As stated above, multinational companies
pulled their employees out of rural Côte d’Ivoire, following public health guidelines. However,while companies highlighted their donations to cocoa-growing countries and communities,
these were rarely the cash infusions or assistance with growing or selling cocoa so that cocoa
farmers needed to support themselves during this period.55
The decreased production and difficulties in selling and transporting cocoa in summer 2020
meant that many farmers reported having to borrow money to maintain their farms, feed
their families, or pay other bills. These loans were generally with someone in the village, thecooperative, or a pisteur. While farmers do not typically borrow from banks, some farmers
sought to fill this gap by seeking bank loans, only to find that the banks lacked the liquidity tomake loans.
The increased income from the LID during the main cocoa-growing season likely allowed
farmers to pay off debts from the prior season. However, the price of cocoa has again decreased,
meaning that farmers may once again go into debt to buy inputs in the upcoming season.

For over two decades, multinational cocoa and chocolate companies have bought cheapcocoa from Côte d’Ivoire, knowing that trafficked children harvested and produced some of
it. Although the Ivorian government closed its northern borders to Mali and Burkina Faso formuch of 2020, children continued to be trafficked into Côte d’Ivoire through unofficial channels
during the first year of the pandemic. As a soldier stationed at Côte d’Ivoire’s northern border
explained, “[e]ven though the borders have closed [because of COVID-19], the movement ofpeople has not stopped. Populations from neighboring countries [Mali and Burkina Faso] comeinto the country through non-official routes. They enter with motorcycles late at night or very
early in the morning with the help of human traffickers.”
Even though the borders have closed [because of COVID-19], the movement of people
has not stopped. Populations from neighboring countries [Mali and Burkina Faso]
come into the country through non-official routes. They enter with motorcycles late atnight or very early in the morning with the help of human traffickers.

55 Companies often donated to governments or large non-profit organizations, or they donated medical equipment or PPE.
See, e.g., Nestle, Cocoa industry donates $835,000 to help farmers fight COVID-19, May 11, 2020, https://www.nestle-cwa.com/
en/media/cocoa-industry-help-farmers-fight-covid-19; Mars, Mars Commits $26M to Communities in COVID-19 Response, Apr.
3, 2020, https://www.mars.com/news-and-stories/press-releases/Mars-commits-donation-to-communities-in-covid19response?utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=covid-19-response; General Mills, General
Mills supports employees and communities in response to COVID-19, Apr. 1, 2020, https://www.generalmills.com/en/News/
NewsReleases/Library/2020/April/General-Mills-supports-employees-and-communities-in-response-to-COVID-19;
Cocoa, chocolate industry donates $835,000 to help farmers fight COVID-19, World Cocoa Foundation, May 4, 2020,
https://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/press-release/cocoa-chocolate-industry-donates-835000-to-help-farmers-fightcovid-19/.

16

Once across the border, children continued to be trafficked into the cocoa-growing regions on
regular bus routes. According to interviews with employees at a bus company on Côte d’Ivoire’s
northern border, the bus company runs buses from the border region through some of the maincocoa-growing regions to Abidjan. The employees reported that a known trafficker frequently
purchased bus tickets for children to travel south to cocoa-growing regions. The buses take thechildren to Pogo, Bouaké, Yamoussoukro, and Abidjan. The employees explained that at each stop,
children get off the bus and head to other nearby cities or towns and then travel to cocoa farms.
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Child trafficking is a known issue in Côte d’Ivoire. Over the past few years, the Ivorian government
has increased its enforcement and started a campaign against child trafficking. Children are now
required to show their birth certificates while traveling to prove that they are accompanied bytheir parents,57 and foreign citizens must produce birth certificates when requested by police.
This is necessary because, as a policeman in a border town explained, “Every time we ask thechildren, they say they are going to a relative’s house. Often, they are accompanied by adults
who they present as a relative with whom they are going.”58“Every time we ask the children, they say they are going to a relative’s house. Often, they
are accompanied by adults who they present as a relative with whom they are going.”

56 Investigative journalist Abou Traoré (AT) also reported that there is a trafficking network that uses the Sikasso-San Pedroroad. The road runs through some of the main cocoa-growing regions, ending at San Pedro, Côte d’Ivoire’s second largest
port. While traffickers use several routes, the most frequented route goes from Sikasso (Mali) to Soubré or to San-Pedro inCôte d’Ivoire. AT reported that Yamoussoukro is a primary destination and that trafficked children depart from there for their
final destinations near Soubré, San Pedro, Duekoué, Guiglo, Blolequin, or other cocoa-growing regions. See Abou Traoré,
Travail des enfants dans les plantations de cacao, CENOZO, Jan. 8, 2019, https://cenozo.org/travail-des-enfants-dans-lesplantations-de-cacao-le-trafic-a-la-peau-dure/ [hereinafter Travail des enfants dans les plantations de cacao].
57 Id.
58 Id. (“Chaque fois qu’on demande aux enfants, ils disent qu’ils vont chez un parent. Souvent, ils sont accompagnés d’adultes
qu’ils présentent comme un parent chez qui ils vont...”).

18

Yet corruption still occurs. In some cases, police are not only aware of child trafficking, but
actively facilitate it and profit from it. Non-Ivorian passengers are reportedly required to pay
an additional “fee” to bus companies to cover bribes at checkpoints along the bus route if theycannot produce the required documents. Prior to reaching the checkpoints, the bus drivers
collect non-Ivorian passengers’ identity documents to present to police and gendarmerie
officers. Once on the bus, the police officer asks that all passengers whose money had beencollected raise their hands. The police officer then compares the number of people raising theirhands with the amount of money collected, takes the corresponding amount of money, andexits the bus without performing other identity checks. In some cases, traffickers reportedly
bribe police officers who are suspicious.59
While it is difficult to document exact numbers of forced laborers,60 it is clear that forced childlabor is an ongoing issue.61 It has been estimated that there are about 30,000 forced laborers inCôte d’Ivoire and Ghana,62 including 16,000 children who are forced to work on cocoa farms bypeople who are not their parents—and the real number is probably much higher.63 Moreover,while forced labor has always been difficult to document, the increased attention to the issue
has pushed it even further underground.64 According to an NGO worker in Côte d’Ivoire,“[b]ecause of the existence of this [anti-trafficking] center, all traffickers are now discreet.”65
59 Travail des enfants dans les plantations de cacao, supra note 56. During our investigations, we witnessed two situations inwhich policemen allowed children who appeared not to have birth certificates to continue traveling south on a bus from Côte
d’Ivoire’s northern border to the cocoa-growing regions. In one situation, a girl who looked to be twelve or thirteen and who
did not have any form of identification was taken off the bus but was then allowed to get back on after a short “negotiation.”
60 See, e.g., Aarti Kapoor, Children at the Heart: Assessment of Child Labour and Child Slavery in Cote d’lvoire’s Cocoa Sector andRecommendations to Mondelez International, EMBODE, 2016, p. 10, https://www.cocoalife.org/~/media/CocoaLife/Files/
pdf/Library/FULL_REPORT_Cote_Ivoire_Mondelez_Embode_ChildrenattheHeart.pdf (“Community members were also
highly reticent to talk about cases or trends of child labour on their farms. ... Finally, the assessment was not able to engage
meaningfully with children to any large extent. Two focus groups were undertaken with children, however with the small
amount of time for the sessions, children were shy and difficult to engage. It was felt that children were well aware of thesensitivities around talking about working on cocoa farms. In one community, the focus group discussion was observed(and intervened upon) by a group of adults, potentially making it difficult for children to express themselves openly.”).
61 Despite the challenges, there are numerous reports and studies that do document the existence of child trafficking andforced child labor. See Dep’t of Labor, 2020 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, p. 21, https://www.dol.
gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2019/2020_TVPRA_List_Online_Final.pdf; U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Bureau
of Int’l Labor Affairs, 2020 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor: Côte d’Ivoire, https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/
ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2020/Cote-d-lvoire.pdf; U.S. Dep’t of Labor, CLCCG Report: 2010-2020 Efforts to ReduceChild Labor in Cocoa, https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/reports/CLCCG-Ten-Year-Report.pdf; U.S. Dep’t ofState, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, & Labor, Cote d’Ivoire 2020 Human Rights Report, p. 33, https://www.state.gov/
wp-content/uploads/2021/03/COTE-D_IVOIRE-2020-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf; 2021 U.S. Dep’t of State, Trafficking in
Persons Report: Côte d’Ivoire, https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-trafficking-in-persons-report/cote-divoire/.
62 Elke de Buhr & Elise Gordon, Bitter Sweets: Prevalence of forced labour & child labour in the cocoa sectors of Côte d’Ivoire &Ghana, Sept. 2018, pp. 28–29, https://cocoainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Cocoa-Report_181004_V15-FNL_
digital.pdf (estimating that there are 9,600 adults and 2,000 children in forced labor in Côte d’voire, and about 3,700 adults
and 14,000 children in forced labor in Ghana).
63 Cocoa’s child laborers; Verité, Assessment of Forced Labor Risk in the Cocoa Sector of Côte d’Ivoire, 2019, p. 5, https://www.verite.org/
wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Verite-Report-Forced-Labor-in-Cocoa-in-CDI.pdf (“Given the hidden nature of much humantrafficking and forced labor, it is also possible that levels may be significantly higher within isolated pockets in the sector.”).
64 Travail des enfants dans les plantations de cacao, supra note 56.
65 Id. (“En raison de l’existence de ce Centre, tous les trafiquants se font désormais discrets. Quand nous découvrons des cas
nous saisissons automatiquement le Centre. Les auteurs sont arrêtés et les victimes prises en charge par le centre.”). The
anti-trafficking center referred to here is one of the three centers that the First Lady’s Office established. U.S. Department ofState, 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report: Côte d’Ivoire, Côte d’Ivoire: Tier 2, https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-trafficking-inpersons-report-2/cote-divoire.
19the Ivorian government rescued nineteen children in Aboisso and arrested four suspectedtraffickers.68 A few days later, the Ivorian police arrested three Burkinabe nationals suspected ofchild trafficking, who were detained in Soubré while traveling on a bus with three children fromBurkina Faso.69 In May 2021, the Ivorian government rescued 68 children from forced labor on
cocoa farms and arrested 25 suspected traffickers.70 Most of these children had been trafficked
into Côte d’Ivoire from Burkina Faso.71 While this increased enforcement is a step in the right
direction, these high-profile enforcement actions rescue only a small percentage of traffickedchildren in the industry.

A young boy carrying a bagof cocoa beans near Soubré
in December 2020.

A young boy working on a cocoa farm near Daloa in December 2019.

It has been estimated that there are about 30,000 forced laborers in Côte d’Ivoire andGhana, including 16,000 children who are forced to work on cocoa farms by people whoare not their parents—and the real number is probably much higher.

Identifying trafficked children among the hundreds of thousands of children engaged in childlabor in the Ivorian cocoa sector can be challenging. Children are often hesitant to admit they
have been trafficked, either because an adult is nearby or because they have been told not toadmit that they are not members of the local community. However, there may be signs, such as
the presence of several International Labor Organization (ILO) Indicators of Forced Labor, thatchildren are trafficked and doing forced labor.

The Ivorian government increased its enforcement in 2020 and 2021, carrying out more raids
than previously. In January 2020, a government raid in Côte d’Ivoire rescued 137 children from
Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo from human traffickers.66 In a separate raid in October
2020, police arrested three farmers suspected of trafficking and rescued eleven children andtwo teenagers from cocoa farms in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire.67 Then, in February 2021,

Children are often hesitant to admit they have been trafficked, either because an adultis nearby or because they have been told not to admit that they are not from the local
community.

66 Ivory Coast Rescues 137 Child Trafficking Victims, VOA News, Jan. 14, 2020, https://www.voanews.com/a/africa_ivory-coastrescues-137-child-trafficking-victims/6182545.html; Leanne de Bassompierre, Ivory Coast Rescues 137 Children in Raid on
Traffickers, BLOOMBERG, Jan. 13, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-13/top-cocoa-grower-rescues137-children-in-raid-on-traffickers.
67 Ivory Coast police rescue 11 children working on cocoa farms, CNN, Oct. 8, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/africa/
ivory-coast-police-rescue-children-cocoa-farm-intl/index.html.

20

68 Ange Aboa, Ivory Coast arrests three suspected child traffickers in cocoa belt, Reuters, Feb. 12, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/
article/cocoa-childlabour-ivorycoast/ivory-coast-arrests-three-suspected-child-traffickers-in-cocoa-belt-idUSL8N2KI3GR.
69 Id.
70 Ivory Coast police rescue 68 children working on cocoa farms, Reuters, May 10, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/
ivory-coast-police-rescue-68-children-working-cocoa-farms-2021-05-10/.
71 Id.

21     The ILO Indicators
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Abuse of vulnerability
Deception
Restriction of movement
Isolation
Physical and sexual violence
Intimidation and threats
Retention of identity documents
Withholding of wages
Debt bondage
Abusive working and living conditions
Excessive overtime72

Children who are working on cocoa farms without adults in the middle of the day, when theyshould be in school, may be trafficked. For instance, one boy who claimed to be twelve years
old and in fifth grade (CM2) was seen holding a machete in the middle of a school day around1:45 pm. He claimed to be heading to the cocoa farm to meet his parents, yet the parents were
nowhere to be seen. This young child, alone in the middle of the day, was isolated in a rural
region, in a vulnerable position by virtue of his age, and engaged in hazardous labor. Similarly,
near Daloa, another young boy carried a machete in a cocoa field during the school day. The boy
claimed that he was “on vacation” but then avoided speaking with us and ran off into the fields.
We witnessed similar situations repeatedly, such as the young boy, who looked to be between
nine and eleven years old, lifting a large bag of cocoa beans around 3:00 pm on a weekday, a
bag that looked to be much too heavy for him.
These documented cases of forced child labor are just the tip of the iceberg. Yet they show thatchildren in conditions of forced labor produce cocoa that is used in chocolate bars around theworld. Cocoa and chocolate companies know that the low prices they pay for cocoa make it all
but impossible for farmers to hire adult workers for a fair wage, creating an environment ripe
for illegal labor practices. While the Ivorian government has recently implemented stronger
laws and policies to fight trafficking and forced labor, child trafficking remains a key issue in the
country, one in which police and other government officials are often complicit.

72 International Labour Office, ILO Indicators of Forced Labor, Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour,https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_203832.pdf.

22

A young boy holding a machete near Daloa in December 2020.
23

V. The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemicon Child Labor
For over twenty years, cocoa and chocolate companies have promised to eradicate child labor in
their supply chains. In 2001, a group of cocoa and chocolate companies signed the Harkin-Engel
Protocol, a voluntary protocol in which companies agreed to eradicate child labor in the West
African cocoa industry by 2005.73 That deadline came and went, with the companies extending
their voluntary deadline to 2010, then changing it to eradicating 70 percent of child labor by
2020.74 In July 2018, the cocoa industry admitted it was unable to make either the 2020 or its
newer 2025 goal.75 Sixteen years after the first missed deadline, child labor remains prevalent in
the West African cocoa industry and even increased in recent years prior to the pandemic.76

A young boy working on a
cocoa farm near Abengourou
in December 2019.
73 Chocolate Mfrs. Ass’n, Protocol for the Growing and Processing of Cocoa Beans and Their Derivative Products In a Manner thatComplies with ILO Convention 182 Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms ofChild Labor (2001), https://cocoainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Harkin_Engel_Protocol.pdf.
74 Joint Statement from U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, Representative Eliot Engel and the Chocolate and Cocoa Industry on the
Implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, CSR WIRE, June 16, 2008, https://tinyurl.com/y6qr4dbh; Framework of
Action to Support Implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol 1, Sept. 13, 2010, https://cocoainitiative.org/wp-content/
uploads/2016/10/Cocoa_Framework_of_Action_9-12-10_Final-1-1.pdf; Andreas Becker, Cocoa Farming, Cheap Chocolate
and Child Labor, DW, Nov. 26, 2020, https://www.dw.com/en/cocoa-farming-cheap-chocolate-and-child-labor/a-55726542.
75 Tim McCoy, 2018 Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group 8th Annual Meeting Remarks, World Cocoa Foundation, Aug. 21, 2018,https://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/blog/2018-child-labor-cocoa-coordinating-group-8th-annual-meeting-remarks/.
For a more detailed discussion of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, see Corp. Accountability Lab and IRAdvocates, Petition to U.S.
Custom & Border Protection to exclude cocoa produced in Côte D’Ivoire manufactured with forced or trafficked child labor
under 19 C.F.R. § 12.42 (Feb. 14, 2020), https://tinyurl.com/rjxw6mk.
76 See Santadarshan Sadhu, et al., NORC Final Report: Assessing Progress in Reducing Child Labor in Cocoa Production in Cocoa
Growing Areas of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, Oct. 2020, pp. 12–15, https://www.norc.org/PDFs/Cocoa%20Report/NORC%20
2020%20Cocoa%20Report_English.pdf [hereinafter NORC Report].

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According to the most recent Department of Labor report, published by NORC at the Universityof Chicago and released in October 2020, there are currently 1.56 million children engaged inchild labor in the West African cocoa sector, including 790,000 in Côte d’Ivoire.77 Over 90 percent
of child laborers in Côte d’Ivoire, or about 770,000 children, are engaged in hazardous childlabor in cocoa production.78 Despite corporate promises to end child labor, the prevalence ofchild labor in agricultural households in the Ivorian cocoa sectors actually rose by 14 percent
over ten years, from 31 percent in 2008/09 to 45 percent in 2018/19.79 Moreover, some forms ofchild labor are worsening. Children are exposed to pesticides at higher rates than they were justa few years ago.80		

A young boy seen carrying a large bag of cocoa pods
to an assembly point on a farm near Abengourou. This
farm sells its cocoa to the FAHO cooperative, which
was certified by UTZ through August 2021 and, as ofNovember 2021, was also certified by Fairtrade.81

As a result of the large numbers of children engaged in hazardous labor on cocoa farms,
children are harmed in a variety of ways. According to the NORC Report, of children working in
agriculture in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, 41 percent “felt very tired or exhausted” from working on
cocoa farms; 34 percent were “in very bad pain”; a full 25 percent “felt very sick”; and 12 percent
had to receive medical treatment at a hospital or health center.82
77 Id., p. 10.
78 Id.
79 Id., p. 12.
80 Id., pp. 15–17.
81 List of UTZ certified cocoa producers, List valid on: August 25, 2021, https://utz.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Listof-UTZ-certified-cocoa-producers.pdf [hereinafter List of UTZ certified cocoa producers]; Fairtrade International, Fairtrade
Finder, https://www.fairtrade.net/finder [hereinafter Fairtrade Finder].
82 NORC Report, p. 83, supra note 76.

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The COVID-19 pandemic likely made a bad situation even worse. While the long-term impactof the COVID-19 pandemic on child labor in the cocoa industry will not be known for a numberof years, there are indications that child labor increased during the summer of 2020, which
may lead to a higher incidence of child labor in the near future. Between 2016 and 2020, rates
of child labor increased globally, with over 8 million additional children entering child labor,of whom 6.5 million carried out hazardous labor.83 Since child labor generally increases whenchildren cannot attend school and parents earn less money, it is likely that the pandemic led, atleast temporarily, to higher rates of child labor.84 As one cocoa farmer explained in August 2021,“They tell us that children are not supposed to work but they are the ones who help me feed
the family. Children work in the plantations because the cooperatives and companies treat us
so badly that we need to make children work on the plantations.”85

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Ivorian government closed all primary and secondary
schools for two months, from March 16 to May 25.87 Generally, child labor increases whenchildren are unable to attend school or when their parents earn less income. Because bothissues were present during the pandemic, it is likely that child labor increased in the cocoa
industry, at least for a period of time before the schools and borders reopened.88
During the two months of school closures, many parents brought their children to the cocoa
fields with them so as not to leave them alone at home. Often, once on the cocoa farms, children
helped their parents with the work, which often entailed carrying or spraying pesticides, using
a machete, carrying heavy loads, or other tasks that the International Labor Organization (ILO)
considers to be hazardous child labor.

A little girl working on a farm near Aboisso in December 2020, carrying
cocoa pods on her head. This farm sold their cocoa beans to the CNEK
cooperative, which as of November 2021, is certified by both Rainforest
Alliance and Fairtrade.86“They tell us that children are not supposed to work but they are the ones who help
me feed the family. Children work in the plantations because the cooperatives andcompanies treat us so badly that we need to make children work on the plantations.”

83 Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2020 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, p. 5, https://www.dol.gov/sites/
dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2020/2020_TDA_BigBook_Online_optimized.pdf; International Labor
Organization & United Nations Children’s Fund, Child Labour Global Estimates 2020, Trends and the Road Forward, ILO and
UNICEF, New York, 2021, p. 8.
84 See, e.g., Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 4.
85 This cocoa farmer explained that he sold his cocoa to the NECAYO cooperative, which was certified by UTZ throughSeptember 2021 and, as of November 2021, was also certified by Fairtrade. See List of UTZ certified cocoa producers, supranote 81; Fairtrade Finder, supra note 81.
86 See Rainforest Alliance, Certificate Search and Public Summaries, Last updated Nov. 8, 2021, https://www.rainforest-alliance.
org/business/certification/certificate-search-and-public-summaries/; Fairtrade Finder, supra note 81.

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A young girl on a cocoa farm near Soubré inDecember 2019.

87 Luciana Debenedetti, et al., The Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Cote d’Ivoire: Lessons from the RECOVR Survey, Sept. 3, 2020,
https://www.poverty-action.org/blog/economic-impacts-covid-19-côte-d’ivoire-lessons-recovr-survey.
88 See Ellie Murphy, The impact of COVID-19 on child labor, National Consumers League, June 30, 2020, https://nclnet.org/
the-impact-of-covid-19-on-child-labor/ (stating that “There is a strong correlation between access to education andpreventing child labor. ‘Lack of access to education keeps the cycle of exploitation, illiteracy, and poverty going—limiting
future options and forcing children to accept low-wage work as adults and to raise their own children in poverty,’ noted thechildren’s advocacy group, Their World.”); see also Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 4.

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The International Labor Organization differentiates between “childwork” and “child labor.”89 Child work is defined as work that does notaffect children’s health and personal development or interfere with
their schooling.90 In contrast, child labor is understood to mean “workthat deprives children of their childhood, their potential and theirdignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.”91 This
includes work that is “mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous
and harmful to children; and/or interferes with their schooling.”92

When schools reopened in late May 2020, they were often not set up to deal with the sanitizationand social distancing needed for children to attend school safely during a pandemic. In somecases there were not enough sinks for children to wash their hands. At one school visited for thisreport, there was only one sink for 700 children in twelve classes. Soap and hand sanitizer werealso often not available. Moreover, some schools faced the difficult choice of how to respondwhen children could not afford masks. Requiring children to wear masks would mean that somechildren would not be able to return to school, yet allowing them to attend unmasked posed arisk to public health.
At one school visited for this report, there was only one sink for 700 children in twelve
classes.

VI. The Way Forward
The cocoa industry, as it currently exists, is unsustainable for cocoa farmers, workers, andchildren. Since March 2020, chocolate companies have earned record profits, yet cocoa farmers
remain reliant on the low prices companies pay for cocoa. As a result, farmer income fluctuateddramatically during the pandemic. Cocoa and chocolate companies have the resources and thepower to change the cocoa industry for the better. But to do so, they must commit to real change.
Multinational companies must treat the cocoa farmers from whom they buy cocoa as individuals
deserving of dignity, respect, and a living income. This requires companies to provide fulltransparency of their supply chains down to the farm-level, including tracing their supply chains
fully and publicly releasing information about all cooperatives, pisteurs, and farms that theysource from. Companies must also increase the price they pay for cocoa, pay the full LID andcountry premiums, and move towards a Living Income price over the next eighteen months.
This means committing to paying a farm gate price of $3,166 USD per ton of cocoa produced,93
a significant increase over the current farm gate price but a necessary step to pull farmers outof poverty. Extreme poverty forces farmers to rely on illegal forms of labor to survive, including
in some cases to pay off the prior season’s debts. Cocoa farmers must be able to buy food fortheir families, send their children to school, and hire adult workers at a fair wage. Additionally,
companies should provide farmers with long-term contracts at stable prices to distribute riskback onto themselves and to supply chain actors who are better situated to absorb it. Longterm contracts with fixed pricing can help to reduce the impact of price fluctuations and spreadthe risk when there are downward trends.

For some children, the school closure in March meant the end of the school year, as many children
did not return when school resumed. Some children at schools that required that all children
wear masks did not return because their parents could not afford to buy masks while others
did not return because the schools reopened shortly before summer vacation. Absenteeism
was exacerbated by the fact that many schools used two shifts to try to accommodate socialdistancing. With children out of school, parents often brought their children to the fields
during the day. While there are not yet statistics on child labor in the cocoa industry during
the pandemic, these trends signal that the pandemic could have led to a decrease in school
attendance and an increase in rates of child labor.

89 See International Labor Organization, C138 - Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138); International Labor Organization,
C182 - Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182).
90 International Labour Organization, What is child labour, https://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang--en/index.htm.
91 Id.
92 Id.

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93 See Necessary Farm Gate Prices for a Living Income, supra note 20, p. 2; Cocoa Barometer, supra note 2, p. 52.

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