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Recent News

Cairns, Australia – The ICVB was recently featured at the International Conference on Child Labor and Child Exploitation as a model for Constructive Corporate Engagement addressing the worst forms of child labor in the cocoa sector. Government representatives, international experts, academia, and corporate representatives from around the world attended the conference focused on “exploring the challenges ahead in securing rights for children in the 21st century” hosted by Children’s Rights International (CRI). Read the entire story here.


ICVB Vision Statement

Verification is an essential step in assessing labor conditions in cocoa-growing communities in West Africa. The ICVB holds the strong conviction that accurate data will help guide strategic planning and programming to effectively address potential areas of concern, including child and forced adult labor. Properly verified data will ensure that future remediation activities are more strategic, cost-effective, targeted and synergistic. Our true stakeholders are the cocoa farmers and children and we measure our success or failure by how well their lives improve, in part, due to our work. Accurate data matters.

Radio NZ

July 2008 - ICVB Co-Chair interviewed on child labor in the cocoa industry on Nine to Noon on Radio New Zealand. Listen to the interview here.

CSRwire

June 2008 - The International Cocoa Initiative ICI) reports on achievements driven by the Harkin-Engel Protocol and describes next steps laid out by industry. "The Protocol marked the first time that an entire industry stepped forward and worked with governments, civil society and other stakeholders to address the worst forms of child labor and forced adult labor in its supply chain." Read the story here.

Corporate Watchdog

Host Bill Baue interviews Verité Senior Policy Advisor Mil Niepold on Verité’s involvement in the work of the International Cocoa Verification Board (ICVB): How to End Child Labor on West African Cocoa Farms. Listen to the interview here.

International Cocoa Initiative

Volume 8 of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) newsletter featured two conferences. One was their own conference on children in agriculture and the other was Verité's NGO Consultative Meeting, "Why Verify? Making Cocoa Verification Count." Read the whole newsletter here.

Results Foundation

Volume 4, Issue 5 of Results Foundation's Magazine focused, in their Social Action section, on "Children Trapped in Slavery" in cocoa farming. The article highlighted the ICVB's progress and Verite's most recent NGO Consultative Meeting in London. Read the entire article here.

Social Funds

Abolishing Child Labor on West African Cocoa Farms, by Bill Baue
Mil Niepold of Verité on the International Cocoa Verification Board and Bama Athreya of the International Labor Rights Forum on the Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing. Read the entire article here.

CSRNYC

Cocoa Verification Board - Willy Wonka Cares
The Cocoa Verification Board is a multi-stakeholder body created to validate government surveys of labor in cocoa production. It is both unique and promising. Its sponsor, Verité, says (12/21/07) that the Board “will select, train and hire individual, independent verifiers who will analyze critique and report on the robustness of the national surveys undertaken by the governments of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire… to identify and remediate the worst forms of child labor and forced adult labor in the cocoa sector.” Read the entire article here.