Cocoa Compass aims for 100% child labor & deforestation monitoring
London
olam food ingredients (ofi), a leading supplier of cocoa beans and cocoa ingredients, today announces it has established child labor monitoring across its managed sustainability programmes, covering 183,000 households in nine countries, and 100% deforestation monitoring across its direct global supply chain, covering almost 12,000 suppliers.
Both achievements are part of Cocoa Compass, ofi’s sustainability ambition for the future of cocoa. In its first impact report published today, the company confirmed that along with its 100% direct supply chain traceability target reached last year, it has hit its remaining 2020 milestones in collaboration with customers and partners and shares progress towards its 2024 and 2030 goals, which include targets on living incomes, child labor and natural capital.
The Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) developed by the cocoa business, in collaboration with the Fair Labor Association (FLA), covers 100% of its managed sustainability programmes and is a ground-breaking new tool for monitoring child labor in Cameroon, Uganda, Brazil and Indonesia. This is a critical step towards Cocoa Compass’s goal of eradicating child labor from the cocoa supply chain by 2030. With training and the help of a smartphone, community leads, and field officers now collect detailed social data on individual farming households, helping to identify children at risk and take faster, more effective action.
This data paints a clearer picture of child labor in the supply chain and the interventions needed. For example, in Côte d'Ivoire, which has a reported high prevalence of child labor, 79% of school-aged children attend school and 75% of children identified in a situation of child labor combine school and work and in 97% of child labor cases, children were working for a parent or a relative. These findings are in line with the recent NORC study from the University of Chicago which showed that school attendance has increased significantly in Côte d’Ivoire in the past ten years, indicating that actions like establishing birth certificates, building classrooms, providing school equipment and setting up Village Savings and Loans Associations are contributing to improving access to education.
