Godwin and his friend were sixteen when they left their village in the Upper East Region of Ghana to work on a cocoa farm 800km away.
Each day was the same: rise at 4am, walk for an hour to the farm, clear the overgrowth with a machete, harvest the cocoa. The work was physically gruelling—Godwin’s neck ached from constantly craning upwards; his hands were covered in blisters. After an hour-long break for lunch, the boys would continue working until 7pm at night.
‘It was like that every day for six months,’ Godwin said. ‘At the end of that period, I got paid about less than $50. That’s the equivalent of around 28 cents a day.’
At the end of that period, I got paid about less than $50. That’s the equivalent of around 28 cents a day.
Ghana and the Ivory Coast are two of the biggest cocoa producers in the world, and it’s estimated that across both nations, 1.56 million children are in child labour—most of them in the cocoa trade. Many of them are children as young as five, working on family farms instead of attending school. Others are teenagers from struggling families who need to support themselves financially.
In Ghana, it’s common for young people to travel across the country in search of work, taking underpaid jobs in places like gold mines, urban centres, fisheries or cocoa farms. Godwin was one such teenager.
‘My goal was to earn money,’ he said. ‘I had just finished junior high school, and my father didn’t have enough money to send me to high school to continue my education. I decided that I was going to work for a period and earn money so I could support myself, because I wanted to go to a boarding school.’
Together with his friend, Godwin borrowed money to pay for a bus fare and travelled for two days from his village to a cocoa farm that promised work.
The boys were expecting to do manual labour around the farmhouse for pay, but instead they were made to work 14-hour days in the fields with no sick leave, clearing land and harvesting cocoa with just a machete and no safety equipment. They were provided with plenty of food and adequate accommodation, but the labour was intense.
‘There were snakes in the field, and I cut myself on a machete on my very first day,’ Godwin said. ‘My neck was aching from looking up all day, and we were carrying heavy loads. By lunchtime we were so exhausted, but we just had to keep working.’
I Didn’t Know I Was Used For Child Labour
Godwin eventually scraped together enough money for boarding school, and with the small amount of pay he earned from the cocoa farm, he bought his very first mattress and set of cutlery to use at school.
After graduation, he borrowed money from the bank to study community development at university. To support his daily needs, during semester break Godwin returned to the cocoa farm where he laboured as a teenager, this time to work as a purchasing clerk in the warehouse.
Armed with knowledge from his degree, Godwin gained a new perspective on his employer.
‘I realised that what I did was child labour,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know I was used for child labour until I went to university and started reading about this issue. My story isn’t unique because when I returned during my university holidays, there were still children working on the cocoa farms.’
Godwin also made another discovery—the farm was selling the cocoa harvested by children to a well-known fairtrade purchasing company.
No child should have to do that amount of work, especially for a grower who was selling to a so-called fairtrade company that wasn’t doing its checks.
Modern Slavery, Poverty And Cultural Norms
Child labour is illegal in Ghana, yet it continues to be prevalent across the country. According to UNICEF, 21 per cent of five to 17-year-olds in Ghana are involved in child labour, and 14 per cent are engaged in hazardous forms of work.
Legislation is difficult to enforce across the country; there’s a cultural norm that encourages children to be put to work so they can learn the ways of the world. ‘Children in Ghana learn things by working on farms with their parents,’ Godwin said. ‘This makes child labour a blurry line, and it becomes difficult to define what is appropriate light work (for a limited period and without compromising on schooling) and what’s not.’
The main driver of exploitation is poverty. Child labour is a coping mechanism in many communities. For some smallholder farmers, it’s the only way to earn enough money in a competitive marketplace. For families caught in the cycle of poverty, it’s about lack of choice.
‘For me and my friend, and for a lot of kids in the north going down in search of work, it’s about survival,’ Godwin said, ‘If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t have been able to afford the items I needed to go to high school. That’s the story for many families in Ghana.’
Changing The Story For Children In Slavery
Godwin’s experience on the farm led him to explore what can be done to end the practice. ‘My own situation with poverty meant that I didn’t have a choice. I started asking myself, how many children are doing this to survive?’ What is the government’s responsibility to such kids? This reinforced my commitment to try and understand social issues and how to find solutions,’ he said.
Realising that addressing poverty was a big part of the solution, Godwin pursued a career in community development. In 2009, he co-founded a foundation with his wife in the Upper East Region of Ghana that enabled women and young people from three villages—including his home village—to earn an income by creating and selling traditional baskets made from recycled water bottles and fabric waste. He also helped start an organisation that educates young people who migrate across Africa on how to protect themselves from harm.
Today Godwin is an International Programs Coordinator at Baptist World Aid, helping vulnerable people find long-term solutions to poverty. While he’s thankful for the lessons his hardships have taught him, Godwin wouldn’t wish his experiences on any child.
‘As a system, Ghana the country should have done better to protect me as a child. I wouldn’t wish any child to go through what I did.’
Go Beyond The Label
Godwin believes consumers play an important role in addressing modern slavery, simply by being more aware of the choices they make at the checkout. He advises people to be informed when buying chocolate, so they can steer away from products made with child labour. Labels alone, he says, aren’t enough.
‘Doing your homework is important because just having a fairtrade label on products doesn’t necessarily make it fair trade. Educate yourself, read beyond the labels, check independent sources. Take that extra step.’
It’s not always easy to trace the origins of the products we consume, but Godwin says it’s a crucial part of shifting the system. ‘Because if we don’t ask where our products come from, we can help continue the exploitation—and too often, it’s a child that pays the price.’
To find out which chocolate brands are acting to prevent the use of child labour, visit the Chocolate Scorecard website. Your choice is your voice.
Vanessa Miller
