The court papers allege that the plaintiffs, all of whom were under 16 years old at the time of their recruitment, worked on farms in major cocoa-producing areas of the country. There, they were forced to work – often for several years or more – with no pay, no travel documents and no clear idea of where they were or how to get back to their families. In the legal claim, all eight plaintiffs describe being recruited in Mali through trickery and deception, before being trafficked across the border to cocoa farms in Ivory Coast. In 2010, a follow-up framework of action for Ivory Coast and Ghana spoke of aiming for “a significant reduction” in the worst forms by 2020. The original deadline for achieving certain standards was 2005. The lawsuit also accuses the companies – whose industry body is the World Cocoa Foundation – of actively misleading the public in the voluntary 2001 Harkin-Engel Protocol, characterised by the complainants as promising to phase out some child labour (“the worst forms”, in the protocol’s words). According to the submissions, the defendants’ contracted suppliers were able to provide lower prices than if they had employed adult workers with proper protective equipment. ![]() Photograph: jbdodane/AlamyĪ central allegation of the lawsuit is that the defendants, despite not owning the cocoa farms in question, “knowingly profited” from the illegal work of children. A sign warns against child labour in cocoa production in Ghana.
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