Coalition to stamp out child labour

A coalition led by Transmar Commodity Group (Ghana) has initiated a child-monitoring and remediation system to track and stamp out child labour in cocoa-producing communities.

The system is meant to complement other initiatives to deal with the nagging issue which is gradually robbing cocoa-producing areas of educated youth.

The Project Manager of Transmar, Mr Alexander Gyadu, told the Daily Graphic that the system would rely on cocoa farmers, community leaders and volunteers to collect data, after which investigations would be conducted and action  taken on them.

Children found working in cocoa farms would be enrolled in school, while those who  refuse to be enrolled or consider themselves as above school-age would be given vocational education.

Premium

While dealing with the child labour issue, Transmar, an international cocoa-buying company, with its parent body in the United States, in association with Nestle Ghana Limited had paid cocoa farmers  premium of GH¢10 per a bag. The premium is an incentive by the cocoa-buying company to the farmers.

The GH¢ 10 premium represents 100 per cent increase over the previous year’s premium. An amount of GH¢ 640,000 was disbursed to 2,942 farmers at a ceremony at Bekwai in the Ashanti Region.

It covered two districts, Asante Bekwai and Nsokote, and 94 communities which produced 1,600 tonnes of certified cocoa beans. Transmar aims, among others, at producing 800 metric tonnes of certified cocoa beans by training 6,665 farmers in 10 cocoa-growing districts this year.