A Fair Share for Cocoa Farmers: How to Foster a More Just Trade in Chocolate's Main Ingredient

Child raking cocoa in Cote d'Ivoire

Date: 

Wednesday, December 17, 2014 - 2:00pm to Friday, March 29, 2024 - 2:08am

Location: 

American Federation of Teachers, 4th floor conference room
555 New Jersey Ave. NW, Washington DC

Despite nearly two decades of projects aimed at improving education, increasing productivity, and implementing cocoa certification, farmers in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire still make significantly less than $2 a day. Such meager earnings leave farmers vulnerable to even minor economic or climate shocks, and fuel abuses such as child labor and labor trafficking. 

Please join us Dec. 17, when ILRF will release a report analyzing these triends and convene a panel discussion about how to change the cocoa industry for the better. 

Panel Speakers:   

Judy Gearhart, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum

Jeff Morgan, Director of Global Programs, Mars Chocolate

Kevin Willcutts, Deputy Director, International Labor Affairs Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor

Facilitator: Marina Colby, Senior Counter-Trafficking In Persons Fellow, Center for Excellency on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, USAID

Introduction: Elizabeth O'Connell, Fair Labor Campaigns Director, Green America