Children toil in Ghana’s cocoa fields

BETENASE – At first sight, the dirt-poor village of Betenase in western Ghana has little to entice job seekers.

Rough red dirt roads wind through tall green trees, their leaves coated with dust. There is one dried out well and no running water or electricity.Many of its 1 500 or so inhabitants live in mud huts and its one school has three classrooms for 100 students.But poor children from the West African country’s parched northern territory still come to Betenase’s lush cocoa plantations in search of work.There have been widespread accusations that children, some of them trafficked, are working on cocoa plantations in neighbouring Ivory Coast, having come from impoverished Burkina Faso or Mali on the edge of the Sahara desert.But the western cocoa plantations of Ghana, the world’s No.2 producer, are also a destination for child labourers, albeit on a much smaller scale.Aid workers say hundreds of children may work on Ghana’s plantations, far fewer than the tens of thousands of children believed to work in Ivory Coast, but the Ghanaian authorities are working with industry to combat the problem.”It is important we tackle this because it is the aim of the government that children of school-going age are in school,” said Robert Kwabena Poku Kyei, a member of the board of Ghana’s industry regulator, Cocobod.”We are also signatories to international conventions which require that we eliminate any incidence of child labour in our system,” he said.HARD LIFE Many of the migrant workers, who are mostly from within Ghana, find their new life as hard as the one they left behind.”Here I get food to eat, but the work is so hard, I feel there is not much difference (between Betenase and my home),” said teenager Alhassan Ali, who left his family in northern Ghana two years ago, aged 14, in search of money.”I was hungry, I wasn’t in school.I came on my own,,” he said, sitting quietly on a chair, his feet shuffling in yellow plastic sandals.For an annual fee of 300 000 cedis (about US$30) plus accommodation and food, he works long hours on a farm owned by an absentee farmer.”I was told it rained a lot, so there was always work.”A hefty share of Ghana’s annual crop comes from its Western forest belt but scarce rains throughout Ghana have led to poor yields for many of the village’s farmers this season.Child labour on cocoa farms has long been a contentious issue for chocolate firms and African governments alike.A 2002 survey by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture said 284 000 children were working in dangerous conditions on West African cocoa farms, mainly in Ivory Coast.Chocolate firms are now working to meet a 2008 industry deadline to monitor labour conditions on West African farms.In Betenase, about 20 migrant children, mostly between the age of 12 and 16, work in or around the village, said Newman Ofosu, an aid worker in the nearby town of Sefwi Wiawso.The smell of alcohol rises in the heat as Betenase chief Nana Kwaku Donkor throws schnapps on the ground to welcome visitors to the village.”A lot of people from outside come here because of poverty of the northern region.It is better for them here,” he said.But migrant workers often found that life was hard here too as yields are low, he said.Until a few days ago, Baba Arabas, 10, worked on his uncle’s farm.”Baba is my brother’s son, the brother has so many children to look after, Baba has become a problem.He wanted me to bring Baba to help on the farm,” said farmer Lamisi Kusasi, who has worked in Betenase for six years.”I did plan to send Baba to school.If he continued working, I would have given him part of the farm,” he said.Baba attended school for the first time this week, helped by visiting charity workers who took pity on him.Now, he swings his legs in his new orange and brown school uniform and whispers answers to questions.If he is lucky, he will not have to return to the farm.If he is luckier still, he can fulfil his ambition of one day becoming a medical doctor.Nampa-ReutersThere is one dried out well and no running water or electricity.Many of its 1 500 or so inhabitants live in mud huts and its one school has three classrooms for 100 students.But poor children from the West African country’s parched northern territory still come to Betenase’s lush cocoa plantations in search of work.There have been widespread accusations that children, some of them trafficked, are working on cocoa plantations in neighbouring Ivory Coast, having come from impoverished Burkina Faso or Mali on the edge of the Sahara desert.But the western cocoa plantations of Ghana, the world’s No.2 producer, are also a destination for child labourers, albeit on a much smaller scale.Aid workers say hundreds of children may work on Ghana’s plantations, far fewer than the tens of thousands of children believed to work in Ivory Coast, but the Ghanaian authorities are working with industry to combat the problem.”It is important we tackle this because it is the aim of the government that children of school-going age are in school,” said Robert Kwabena Poku Kyei, a member of the board of Ghana’s industry regulator, Cocobod.”We are also signatories to international conventions which require that we eliminate any incidence of child labour in our system,” he said.HARD LIFE Many of the migrant workers, who are mostly from within Ghana, find their new life as hard as the one they left behind.”Here I get food to eat, but the work is so hard, I feel there is not much difference (between Betenase and my home),” said teenager Alhassan Ali, who left his family in northern Ghana two years ago, aged 14, in search of money.”I was hungry, I wasn’t in school.I came on my own,,” he said, sitting quietly on a chair, his feet shuffling in yellow plastic sandals.For an annual fee of 300 000 cedis (about US$30) plus accommodation and food, he works long hours on a farm owned by an absentee farmer.”I was told it rained a lot, so there was always work.”A hefty share of Ghana’s annual crop comes from its Western forest belt but scarce rains throughout Ghana have led to poor yields for many of the village’s farmers this season.Child labour on cocoa farms has long been a contentious issue for chocolate firms and African governments alike.A 2002 survey by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture said 284 000 children were working in dangerous conditions on West African cocoa farms, mainly in Ivory Coast.Chocolate firms are now working to meet a 2008 industry deadline to monitor labour conditions on West African farms.In Betenase, about 20 migrant children, mostly between the age of 12 and 16, work in or around the village, said Newman Ofosu, an aid worker in the nearby town of Sefwi Wiawso.The smell of alcohol rises in the heat as Betenase chief Nana Kwaku Donkor throws schnapps on the ground to welcome visitors to the village.”A lot of people from outside come here because of poverty of the northern region.It is better for them here,” he said.But migrant workers often found that life was hard here too as yields are low, he said.Until a few days ago, Baba Arabas, 10, worked on his uncle’s farm.”Baba is my brother’s son, the brother has so many children to look after, Baba has become a problem.He wanted me to bring Baba to help on the farm,” said farmer Lamisi Kusasi, who has worked in Betenase for six years.”I did plan to send Baba to school.If he continued working, I would have given him part of the farm,” he said.Baba attended school for the first time this week, helped by visiting charity workers who took pity on him.Now, he swings his legs in his new orange and brown school uniform and whispers answers to questions.If he is lucky, he will not have to return to the farm.If he is luckier still, he can fulfil his ambition of one day becoming a medical doctor.Nampa-Reuters