US chocolate firms to fund child labor study

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - Major chocolate makers in the United States said Friday they would help fund an international effort aimed at eliminating child labor abuses in the cocoa-producing areas of West Africa.

The announcement by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association comes one week after a U.N. agency, the International Labor Organization (ILO), issued a report saying tens of thousands of children are being exploited, including many working on plantations in western and central Africa.

Among members of the U.S. association are Hershey Foods Corp. (NYSE, M&M Mars and Nestle USA).

"As an industry, we strongly condemn abusive labor practices," said Larry Graham, president of the association, in a statement. Graham added that the CMA's "goal is to be part of the worldwide effort to solve this problem."

U.S. retail sales of chocolate in 1999 totaled $12.9 billion, according to government statistics.

The CMA said it will help fund a study of working conditions in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two leading growers of cocoa.

An official of the organization said he could not yet estimate the amount of money to be contributed.

Results of the study will be used to establish pilot programs, including setting labor standards for family farms and monitoring for abusive practices, the CMA statement said.,

The study is being directed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and will also be funded by European cocoa organizations.

Michelle King, a spokeswoman for USAID, said the study will be part of a program already in operation in West Africa to build local economies by developing tree-crops such as cocoa.

She said the study was part of increased efforts by USAID to understand "the social circumstances and particularly the labor practices" in major cocoa-producing countries such as Ivory Coast and Ghana.

According to the ILO report, poverty-stricken parents are sending their children into forced labor or children are abducted by traffickers. Those children, according to the agency, often work up to 20 hours a day in difficult conditions.

Bill Guyton, vice president of cocoa research for the American Cocoa Research Institute, an arm of CMA, told Reuters the ILO report "definitely was a factor" in the association's decision to help fund the USAID study.

Guyton said the ILO report "took us a little bit by surprise."

"With over 600,000 small-scale cocoa producers in Ivory Coast, it's hard to know what's happening on each farm," he said.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, has denied allegations in Western media that up to 90 percent of its cocoa output is tainted by child labor, and says foreigners are responsible for any child trafficking.