Petition to Customs and Border Protection Challenging the Importation of Forced Labor Produced Cocoa and Cocoa Products

February 2020

Corporate Accountability, International Rights Advocates, and the UC Irvine Civil Rights Litigation Clinic submitted a petition under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). Section 307 prohibits the importation of all goods produced in whole or in part with forced or prison labor. The petition includes evidence of forced child labor in the Ivorian cocoa industry and requests that CBP issue a conditional Withhold and Release Order (WRO) against major cocoa importers, giving these companies 180 days to demonstrate significant changes to address their role in benefitting from forced child labor in the cocoa sector of Cote D’Ivoire. 

The petition also includes evidence of trafficking of children from Mali and Burkina Faso into Cote d’Ivoire to work on farms. Children between the ages of 10 and 18 are often lured by promises of money or other gifts to travel to work on cocoa farms. There, these children often perform the worst forms of child labor, using machetes and dangerous pesticides, often without pay.

To learn more about the petition, read our press release and our blog post.

Updates:

In June 2021, CAL submitted a supplemental petition to CBP. To learn more about it, read our press release or our blog post.

In February 2022, CAL and IRAdvocates submitted a letter to the new CBP Commissioner requesting he take action on our petition and address forced child labor in cocoa harvesting.