Combating Child Labour Through Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case Study of Côte d'Ivoire

Sammanfattning: Although rooted in the history of humankind, child labour has become a matter of increasing global attention. Significant steps have been taken in the international arena to combat the problem. However, its prevalence gives reasons for concerns. According to latest estimates of the International Labour Organization, 215 million children in the world are still caught up in child labour and 115 million of them are subjects to its worst forms. While child labour has been declining modestly in many of the developing regions of the world in the last decade, it continues to increase in the sub-Saharan Africa. This reality emphasizes the urgent need for both international and national focus on the issue in the area. Reports of children working under abusive and harmful conditions on cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire began to come out into public eye in 2000. This publicity lead to increased awareness of these practices in the cocoa sector and fueled actions of the government and the cocoa industry to address the issue. Although both public and private initiatives to eliminate child labour in cocoa, mainly in its worst forms, have been taken, the progress towards the goal has proven to be rather unsuccessful due to various reasons. The obligation to uphold international human and labour rights lies primarily on states. However, with the rise and global expansion of corporate social responsibility, it has been suggested that business can play an important role in raising international labour standards. Keeping all that in mind the study focuses mainly on the international and national legal framework to protect children from exploitive and harmful labour practices in the sector. Moreover, it explores the international principles created to encourage corporate social responsibility and how it can be used to raise compliance with international labour standards in the cocoa production in Côte d'Ivoire.