News
October 30, 2007
harkin, engel, congressional leaders, work to eliminate child labor in cocoa industry
Congressionally mandated "Tulane Report" on industry's progress due out tomorrow
Washington, D.C. – In a letter to Chairman of the Global Issues Group, John Claringbould, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), and their colleagues today urged him and his industry colleagues to heed next year’s deadline in implementing a credible certification and verification program for improved labor practices in Ghana and Ivory Coast. In 2001, Harkin and Engel worked with the chocolate and cocoa industries to develop a framework for the cocoa industry to eliminate the worst forms of child and slave labor in the growing and processing of cocoa beans and their derived products. The “Harkin-Engel Protocol” marked a major first step in having an entire industry, including companies from the United States and Europe, taking responsibility for addressing the worst forms of child labor and adult slave labor in its supply chain.
“These industries have taken important steps in agreeing to the protocol – responsibly addressing abuses in their own sector,” said Harkin. “Eight years later should be long enough for the industry to turn its words into deeds. It is time for them to act on their promises and have in place adequate transparency and credible verification systems as called for in the protocol.”
“There is no doubt that the chocolate and cocoa industries have made progress in beginning to address child and slave labor,” said Engel. “But work remains to be done. 2008 will be a crucial year for us and we expect to see nothing short of the concrete results that have long been promised.”
The Harkin-Engel Protocol laid out a series of date-specific actions, including the development of credible, mutually acceptable, voluntary, industry-wide standards of public certification by July 1, 2005 to give a public accounting of labor practices in cocoa farming in West Africa. Unfortunately, the 2005 deadline was not met but industry representatives agreed to accelerate their implementation of the protocol to cover at least fifty percent of the cocoa growing areas in Ghana and Ivory Coast by July 1, 2008.
To ensure compliance with this new deadline, Congress created an oversight body designed to give an impartial assessment of the industry’s efforts to implement the protocol. Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer was chosen to carry out this task through a competitive process by the Department of Labor. Its first report will be made available to Members of Congress and the public tomorrow, October 31, 2007.
The following members of Congress joined Harkin and Engel in signing today’s letter: Senators Christopher Dodd (CT), Herb Kohl (WI), Byron Dorgan (ND) and Congressmen and women Tom Lantos (CA), George Miller (CA), Barney Frank (MA), Jim McGovern (MA), GK Butterfield (NC), Peter DeFazio (OR), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Elijah Cummings (MD), Chaka Fattah (PA), Alcee Hastings (FL), Jesse Jackson Junior (IL), Bobby Rush (IL), Phil Hare (IL), Raul Grijalva (AZ), Jeff Fortenberry (NE), Dave Loebsack (IA), and Mike Honda (CA).
