Photo: kone kassoum | Pixabay
Ivory Coast’s government is taking measures to eliminate child labor in the country’s cocoa industry, which produces 45% of cocoa consumed around the world. Because educational costs are prohibitive for many families in Ivory Coast, children often end up working in cocoa fields, doing hazardous work such as spraying chemicals on the crops. In 2010, the government started tackling this problem on many fronts, including passing laws that banned child trafficking, raising public awareness of child trafficking, and offering free education for children six to 16. Citizens from police officers to social workers receive training on how to detect and stop child labor. There are three children’s centers in Ivory Coast dedicated to helping children who have been trafficked. Some of these are taught vocational skills such as sewing and hairdressing, so they don’t have to return to the fields. Even though the problem of child labor has not disappeared, the initiatives are working and changing lives. Karim Soura, 13, was working long hours in the cocoa fields until his mother was persuaded to enroll him in the children’s center, where Karim learned how to sew. “If I could go back in time, I would tell [my younger self] not to go to the fields and to attend school,” he says. “Now, my future is sewing. I won’t make my children work in the cocoa fields. I’ll encourage them to go to school so they can get a job.”
|
|
More:
