KIT Working Paper.
Child labour remains a persistent human rights violation in international commodity supply chains, adversely impacting children’s physical and mental health and depriving them of educational opportunities (UNICEF, 2020).
This holds true for the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire; a country that produces 43% of all cocoa worldwide (ICCO, 2022). A nationwide study conducted by NORC (Sadhu, et al., 2020) showed that during the 2018/19 cocoagrowing season, 790,000 children were engaged in child labour in cocoa producing areas in Côte d’Ivoire. This represents 38% of children living in agricultural households. Of these children, an estimated 770,000 children (37% of children living in agricultural households) were exposed to hazardous work.