Safe & Decent Work

Many of our supply chains are in emerging markets across rural areas, and can involve intermediaries and other third-parties. This makes eradicating labour issues complicated, however we continue to monitor our supply chain activities and where necessary, take remediation action.

Measuring Progress

Our activities are broad, from working with farmers, to driving in challenging environments, processing and packing in factories, managing inventories in warehouses, transporting goods, and working in offices. We commit to national laws and the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Global Compact’s guiding principles. Review our commitments and activities throughout 2021 in our latest annual report.

Achieving 100% child labour monitoring in cocoa programmes

ofi has established child labor monitoring across its managed sustainability programmes, covering 183,000 households in nine countries.

Through our safety programme – An Even Safer Olam – we deliver training to identify and assess risks so we can eliminate them where possible or reduce them to an acceptable level where we cannot remove them altogether. We promote an open and honest culture and shared responsibility in reporting risks promptly.

We are committed to ensuring all employees are treated with dignity and fairness. Our Fair Employment Policy defines a workplace where the rights of all employees are respected.

To support our employees and workers, we provide training on employment laws, workplace rights and sessions for managers to build understanding and raise awareness of employment and labour rights. In 2021, over 16,000 employees received training on identifying and preventing sexual harassment among other areas.

We have integrated human rights and child labour considerations into our core due diligence activities and increased field assessments in high-risk areas. This enables us to focus resources into hotspot areas and implement preventative measures such as safe spaces for children, supporting access education and helping farmers access mechanisation.

We are reviewing our grievance reporting mechanisms to improve follow up, monitoring and record keeping, to ensure grievances are addressed promptly, consistently, and transparently.

Partnering for Scale

We continue to review our own operations and supply chain, to make positive changes. However, we cannot make the level of change required alone. We are active in a number of sector-wide initiatives and are collaborating with customers to help them mitigate their environmental impacts.

Useful Links

Child Labour Monitoring

Child labour monitoring and remediation is set to be rolled out across our operations in Cameroon, in the first programme of its kind by a cocoa company.

Providing Safe Spaces

Going to school during the summer holidays wouldn’t be most children’s idea of fun, but for 13 year-old Nurcan Sekiz, it means a safe space to play and not work.

The Fight Against Child Labour

Child labour in cocoa producing countries often stems from some really complex societal and economic challenges.

International Day of the African Child 2022

This week is International Day of the African Child, a day that raises awareness of the continuing need to improve education for children in Africa.

Collaborating with Save the Children

Child labor in cocoa has no one cause. There are often complex and deep-rooted cultural, social, and economic challenges at play.

How to build a robust human rights system

As a human rights specialist at the Rainforest Alliance, I have learned that creating an environment where farming communities feel supported to speak up about abuses—without the threat of punishment—is more likely to result in cases of child labor being reported.