Dominique Ouattara Supports Verifiers in the Fight against Child Labor

Dominique Ouattara, President of the National Committee for the Oversight of Actions to Combat Trafficking, Exploitation and Child Labor (CNS) offered one hundred (100) motorcycles to the verifying agents on Thursday, August 24, 2023. This ceremony marks for so say the start-up of this local control and surveillance brigade in the thirteen (13) regional delegations of the Conseil du Café Cacao.

The ceremony which took place at the Office of the First Lady in Cocody recorded the presence of several personalities including verification agents.

The Child Labor Verification Agents are made up of young girls and boys of Ivorian nationality, aged 20 to 35, recruited by the Coffee-Cocoa Council with the minimum level of the baccalaureate.

Their main missions are to ensure vigilance and permanent monitoring of the risks of child labor, by raising public awareness, and to report cases of child labor to the competent authorities for appropriate remedial action. They also have the role of relaying CNS awareness messages to rural communities, for example, by explaining to cocoa producers the dangerous work that is prohibited for children, and the light or socializing work that is allowed to them. in cocoa farming, in order to dispel the ignorance of cocoa producers on the issue of child labour. Thus, the creation of this civilian child labor monitoring brigade will make it possible to strengthen the social traceability of cocoa, through its role as a monitoring and early warning player in the Labor Observation and Monitoring System. of Children in Côte d’Ivoire (SOSTECI).

Mrs N’Da Nadia Bindé, Chief of Staff and representative of Mrs Yao Patricia Sylvie, Executive Secretary of the CNS, recalled the importance and weight of cocoa farming in the national economy. Indeed, Ms. N’Da Nadia Bindé pointed out that Ivorian cocoa alone represents 45% of world production. In addition, cocoa cultivation generates almost 7 million jobs. For her, despite the actions and commitments of the State and the First Lady in the fight against child labor, efforts to remedy the phenomenon are unfortunately insufficient. It is therefore within this framework, according to her, that the initiative to recruit and train these 100 auditors falls. Continuing, she said that these verifiers will have the mission to operate a permanent proximity surveillance in the hamlets in order to sensitize the farmers on the question of child labor.

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For Mr. Kouassi Jérémie Kan, representative of the Director General of the Conseil du Café Cacao, this initiative of the First Lady is a concrete solution to the issue of the fight against child labor. Also, he urged the verification agents to go through all the hamlets in order to sensitize the planters. Mr. Kouassi Jérémie Kan ended by recalling the new initiatives of the Conseil du Café Cacao through the establishment of a system for the traceability of cocoa, the establishment of the standard on Ivorian cocoa and the project of contribution to reforestation and agroforestry.

Mr. Amani Michel Ange, consultant in charge of the question of child labor in the Office of the First Lady, underlined the objectives of the creation of this monitoring unit.