Ivory Coast seeks to eradicate cocoa child labour

The world's top cocoa producer, Ivory Coast, is battling to persuade chocolate makers that child labour is not used on its plantations in a push to win greater acceptance of its products in the United States and Europe.
Guy Alain Gauze, special adviser on foreign trade to Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, told Reuters the country aimed to respect a July 2005 deadline to certify cocoa products as being produced without the use of child workers.
"The most recent investigations have proved that the phenomenon is not as widespread as the way some of the Western media have stigmatised it," Gauze said on the sidelines of a cocoa conference in Abidjan.
He said local authorities in the country's main cocoa-growing regions - which produce around 40 percent of the world's supply - had already taken steps to ensure that children were not working in the fields.
"We've taken measures to make sure that our products are well produced and can go on to the European and American markets," he said.
Unicef says some 200,000 children are believed to be trafficked each year in West Africa. Some end up on cocoa and coffee plantations in Ivory Coast carrying heavy loads, wielding machetes, and spraying pesticides unprotected.
But many cocoa farms are family-owned in Ivory Coast - where six million people or 40 percent of the population depend directly or indirectly on the cocoa industry. Some children help out as members of the family rather than forced labourers.
Members of the global chocolate and cocoa industry signed an accord in late 2001 committing to the introduction of a certification system by July next year enabling customers to choose chocolate produced without abusive labour practices.
Gauze said Ivory Coast would also lobby the European Union not to introduce rules on toxin levels in cocoa, which growers fear could have a devastating impact on exports.
The proposed legislation sets a maximum level for ochratoxin A (OTA), a carcinogen found naturally in cocoa beans and produced by certain species of mould.