OpenLobby.EU
Explore

International Cocoa Initiative

ICI

ICI is a Swiss-based multi-stakeholder initiative advancing the elimination of child labour and forced labour in cocoa growing communities by uniting the forces of the cocoa and chocolate industry, civil society, farming communities, governments, international organizations and donors.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Effectively banning products produced, extracted or harvested with forced labour

30 Nov 2022

ICI, together with its members and partners, aims to contribute to the elimination of all forms of child labour in the cocoa sector, to take effective measures to eradicate forced labour (SDG 8.7) and to advance responsible conduct by businesses in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct. ICI believes that the most effective way to do this is for governments, businesses, civil society organisations, development actors and communities to scale up the coverage of effective systems that prevent, identify and address child labour and forced labour to cover all cocoa-growing areas. It also requires the creation of the right enabling environment where policies are conducive to change, in an integrated, coherent and coordinated framework. As we had outlined in our response to the call for evidence launched by the European Commission in June this year, forced labour has been identified as a salient human rights issue in the cocoa sector, next to child labour. Among agricultural households in cocoa-growing areas of Côte dIvoire and Ghana, 45% of children were estimated to be in child labour in 2018/9 . Forced labour is less common, but its impacts are serious . The best available estimates of forced labour in the cocoa sector of Côte dIvoire and Ghana, based on a 2018 report from the Walk Free Foundation, suggest that less than 0.5% of adult workers and around 1% of child workers in cocoa were in forced labour between 2013 and 2017 . In this context, ICI welcomes the European Commissions proposal for a Regulation on the prohibition of products made with forced labour on the Union Market. The attached document details our feedback in more detail.
Read full response

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis), Vanessa Mock (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

2 Feb 2021 · sustainable cocoa initiative