A senior British journalist wrote a book a few years ago about how difficult it is to assist, or force, developing countries in their transition from one-party to multi-party states, that is, from dictatorship to democracy. Paradoxically, military force is sometimes used, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the outcome may not even lead to more democracy. The British journalist and writer, Humphrey Hawksley, adds that along with democracy, the West always brings capitalism. And he concludes that often the living conditions for ordinary people become worse. Yes, they get the right to vote, but not with the right to work for fair pay, not the right to education and often poorer medical services because “user fees” get introduced. He starts and ends his thought-provoking book by comparing Cuba and Haiti, asking us readers which country we would have chosen to live in if we only had those two countries to choose from and the world was coming to an end. Democracy Kills (Macmillan, London, 2009) is a book reminding us that all economic and other development must benefit ordinary people. Hidden agendas must be made visible and imperialist power games, ideological and economic, must be shelved.
The book makes a very interesting read and its topics from far and near may shed light on any country, including Pakistan, where I now live, and Norway, where I tread my childhood shoes and my younger years. In this article, I shall only focus on one chapter in Hawksley’s book, Ivory Coast as Democracy’s Shame.
He shows that due to “market forces” that come with the new democracy, I mentioned already, the poor farmers often get paid less for their produce than before when there was some form of state control with crop authorities and similar bodies fixing the prices to the farmers, and subsidising when necessary. Yes, the old system was not ideal and the new system is, indeed, not, but the old system had some forms of safety net and regulations that was better for the Ivorian farmers than the new system. The new system does not regulate at all, and it does not care if the farmers starve - or if the only labour the farmer can afford is child labour, or worse, children forced to work just for a ramshackle shelter above their heads, a meal a day, and no pay at all – to be called by its right name “modern day slavery”.
Let me narrate, in my words, some of Hawksley’s experience and thoughts when he visited one Ivory Coast’s cocoa plantations, where the workers were children. The plantation is run by a peasant farmer. Almost half of the world’s chocolate is grown like that, in Ivory Coast, and the prices have not gone up in 30 years. And again, without any government buffer when costs go up, the weather is unfriendly, the buyers come late, so the harvest rot, and obviously, the buyer decides the quality of the harvest and fixes the prices unilaterally.
And now my story!
Hawksley turned his head as the land cruiser drove along the lush path on his way back to the city in the evening. On the roadside stood Marc Kwame, a 10 or 11 year old boy, whom Hawksley had spoken to earlier that day. The boy had come to wish the journalist farewell. He lifted his hand and waved uncertainly. He smiled but with sadness over his face. He stood there in his ragged shorts with scars on his ankles and legs from machete cuts from clearing the land so that the cocoa plants could grow freely. Marc grew and harvested the chocolate beans that Huxley and I remember from our childhood parties, as chocolate bars wrapped in shiny, colourful paper, and drinking chocolate with whipped cream. We recall names like Cadbury, Schweppes, Mars and Hershey. The companies had become rich on the produce from underpaid farmers, from children having worked on the plantations, and they had done nothing to help increase the work conditions and the pay to the farmers. Marc would not know the names of the chocolate companies and he would never have seen a chocolate bar in the shiny paper. He did not even know what chocolate beans were used for. He had no idea how it tasted. He was just forced to work for no pay.
Behind Marc stood another boy, a few years younger and thinner, with a slightly swollen stomach from malnutrition. His name is Kone. He too waves, but more hesitantly than Marc, and without lifting his eyes. When Hawksley had spoken to him and the other boys a bit earlier on the plantation, he had enquired about Kone’s parents and his home village. His father was dead, he had said. But his mother? “He does not know,” said Marc. Adding that “she is far away. He does not remember her face and it makes him unhappy.” Kone had looked down, as his friend had explained softly, his fingers pawing the filthy, thorn shorts. “He is not even sure where he comes from and if he will ever get back.”
The driver accelerated. The boys became smaller and looked even more helpless, as the distance increased. Hawksley turned his head and closed his eyes. He too felt helpless. He knew that the right thing would have been to take the boys with him, rescue them from their ordeal, but he also knew that the police would have stopped him and asked for the boys’ papers at many check posts. Even for him, an experienced journalist, it was risky enough to travel far into Ivory Coast’s rural hinterland and return late in the afternoon as dark was approaching. But what he had seen made him angry: It was child labour. It was worse: It was forced child labour, modern day child slavery. He knew that if the children tried to run away they would be beaten when caught, or worse, their foot soles cut with razor blades so they would not be able to run again.
The children had been lured by men, who had promised professional football opportunities in the capital, or paid jobs. They had just taken innocent children away, sometimes with the consent of parents, or a single mother, who hoped her child would be well treated, and she would have one mouth less to feed.
There are thousands of child labourers in Ivory Coast, hundreds of thousands, probably. Nobody knows. Very few want to know. It will only end when prices of cocoa increases. That is the responsibility of the country’s government and the foreign and multinational companies to ascertain. Then adults will be employed and the child labour and slavery loses its market. Then the children can go to school as they should. They can stay with their parents and have a normal childhood. Yes, often they would help with chores at home, collect water, look after siblings, work on the parents little farm, and so on. But as long as such work is monitored by parents in the home, and not overdone, it is not child labour. Child labour is when children are primarily used for work outside the home for pay. It is stealing their childhood and the foundation for their future. Child slavery is the worst form of child labour.
Today, Save the Children, the United Nations International Labour Organisation, or ILO, and other organisations have put the topic on the agenda. And they give the chocolate companies a hard time. The English language TV channel, CNN, has this spring several programmes about child labour and child slavery. One important measure that they all want is a “Fair Trade” label on all chocolate products guaranteeing that a child has not been used
Last Saturday, I had dinner in an Islamabad restaurant with some other Norwegians. A Pakistani family was at the neighbouring table, or several tables joined together because the extended family was large. A 10 or 11 year old boy sat at a table away from the family. When we looked at him, he just smiled. Sometimes, he was holding a small child of a year or two. He finally got some food towards the end of the evening. As the party was leaving, I enquired about the situation. The boy was the son of the cook at their house. He was from another town, they explained, maybe another religion, too, but that we did not ask about. In any case, the boy was, probably, working in the house where he stayed. He was probably not going to school, and probably just receiving food and a roof over his head, nothing more. The wealthy family might think they were kind to the boy and his family. But is it right? Should children grow up in such a way?
Recently, an NGO estimated that in the quite wealthy homes in Islamabad every four or five home has a child working for them. It is not right! It is not right for the child and also not for the adults and the other children in the family, who learn that such inequality is acceptable - not knowing that in the eyes of God we are all equal!
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist based in Islamabad. He has served as United Nations specialist in the United States, as well as various countries in Africa and Asia. He has also spent a decade dealing with the Afghan refugee crisis and university education in Pakistan.
Email: atlehetland@yahoo.com