economic challenges - domestic migrant workers

• Under Article 8 of ICCPR, State parties must ensure:  ‘no one shall be held in slavery; the slavery and the slave-trade in all their forms shall be prohibited’; ‘no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour.’

  • Both the Ivory Coast and Ghana have ratified the ICCPR.
• GLOBAL SLAVERY INDEX

  • In 2021, Nestle reported gross profits was estimatedly US$18 billion, where the average daily income of coca farmers was around US$1.42 in Ghana
  • Farmers earn just 6% of the retail price, while manufactures earn 33%. 
  • Approximately 16,000 children across the two countries had been forced to work and were typically coerced by someone in their family due to widespread poverty and limited alternative opportunities to earn income
• Washington Post

  • ‘Powerful economic forces that draw children to hard labour in one of the world’s poorest places’.
• • The farms of Western Africa supply cocoa to international giants (Hershey’s, Mars), which has exposted the industries direct connection to the worst forms of child labour, human trafficking and slavery.
  • Most cocoa farmers earn less than $1 a per day, an income below the extreme poverty line in order to keep prices competitive. 
  • Approx 2.1 million children in the Ivory Coast and Ghana work on cocoa farms, most likely to be exposed to the worst forms of child labour.
• • Almost no cocoa farmers in Ghana or the Ivory Coast make a living income. As long as farmers do not earn a living income, they will not have enough to pay the workers on their farms a living income either and child labour and slavery will continue to pervade the industry.