While it is common practice in many agricultural societies for older children to help out on the family farm after school or on weekends, a line has to be drawn when the work in question is excessive or hazardous, when it gets in the way of a child’s right to education, play or rest, or when even young children are made to work.
According to the International Labor Organization, more child laborers work in agriculture than any other industry in the world. Since the 1990s, the issue has plagued the West African cocoa sector, where 70 percent of the world’s cocoa is grown. Today, an estimated 2.1 million child laborers work in cocoa production in just Ghana and Ivory Coast.
A recently published Tulane University survey — undertaken as part of the commitments under the Harkin-Engel Protocol, an international agreement aimed at ending the worst forms of child labor — reported that the total number of child laborers working in cocoa in Ghana and Ivory Coast increased 21 percent from 2008-09 to 2013-14.