The programm is known as a child labor monitoring and remediation system, or c l m r s. Its reprsentatives known as community facilitators. First travel to various cocoa farms and identify any child engaged in hazardous work. Other facilitators then visit farming families and use a variety of means to persuade them to stop using child labor.
Child labor has been a longstanding scourge in the $100-billion cocoa industry for more than two decades. Despite efforts by U.S. Congressmen, African governments, the world’s biggest chocolate companies and various non-profit groups, it has been a tough nut to crack. In this episode, we look at program that actually seems to be having an effect. It uses a network of smartphones to identify child laborers on thousands of remote farms in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. It then tries to persuade farmers to stop using their children on farms and to send them to school instead. You will hear from cocoa farmers in Ghana, from Nestle, maker of KitKat, and a Swiss non-profit group called the International Cocoa Initiative, or ICI, which co-founded the program. (Photo: AP)