Côte d’Ivoire strengthens the fight against child labour

Côte d'Ivoire strengthens the fight against child labour

A technical workshop was held to harmonize monitoring tools, strengthen data quality, and improve the planning of interventions against child labour, particularly in agricultural value chains.

1 May 2026

Cocoa pods © Canva/Valdenilson Santos

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Grand-Bassam (ILO News) - From Monday 13 to Wednesday 15 April 2026, the Ministry of Employment, Social Protection and Vocational Training, through the Directorate for the Fight against Child Labour, organized a technical workshop in Grand-Bassam to review and update risk indicators related to child labour in Côte d'Ivoire.

The workshop was part of efforts to strengthen the national system for combating child labour. Its objective was to review and update the indicators used to identify children exposed to the risk of child labour, monitor cases of trafficking, exploitation and hazardous work, analyse household and community vulnerability factors, and guide interventions towards the areas most at risk. These indicators cover, in particular, children's school attendance, their participation in economic activities or excessive household chores, their working conditions, incidents of trafficking or forced labour, as well as sociodemographic, geospatial and contextual factors related to social protection, access to social services and sectors of economic activity. The workshop also aimed to harmonize these indicators with international standards and adapt them to the sociological realities of Côte d'Ivoire, in order to strengthen data quality, the monitoring of interventions and the measurement of progress achieved.

In a context marked by growing requirements in terms of due diligence, traceability and the sustainability of global supply chains, the availability of harmonized indicators is a strategic issue. For Côte d'Ivoire, this process is particularly important in agricultural value chains such as cocoa, coffee, cashew, rubber and palm oil, where public, private and community actors must be able to rely on coherent, comparable and credible data.

L'atelier a réuni plus de 50 experts et responsables techniques issus des ministères, des structures publiques et privées, des organisations internationales, industriels du cacao, et des organisations engagées dans la lutte contre le travail des enfantes

The presentations provided an opportunity to review the indicators currently used by the Child Labour Observation and Monitoring System in Côte d'Ivoire. These indicators are used, in particular, to identify children in situations of vulnerability, monitor reported cases, and guide interventions towards the areas and groups most exposed to risk. The discussions, however, highlighted the need to better harmonize existing tools, improve data availability, and ensure that data are regularly updated.

The ILO recalled the importance of international statistical standards in measuring child labour. The resolution adopted at the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians in 2013 was presented as an essential reference for better classifying the different forms of work and clarifying the concepts used in measuring child labour. These standards are also reinforced by ILO Convention No. 160 on Labour Statistics, which promotes the production of reliable and comparable data.

Discussions also focused on key definitions related to child labour, including economically active children, hazardous work, the worst forms of child labour, forced labour, child trafficking and excessive household chores. This clarification was necessary to strengthen a shared understanding among the different actors and avoid situations where each institution or programme uses different approaches to measure the same phenomenon.

Particular attention was also paid to the cocoa sector. The Coffee-Cocoa Council presented the indicators used to ensure the economic, social and environmental traceability of this strategic sector. The discussions underlined the importance of strengthening the links between cocoa sector indicators and those of the national system, in order to promote greater interoperability between sectoral mechanisms and SOSTECI.

The workshop also presented an approach for estimating the risk of child labour using advanced statistical methods, including Small Area Estimation. This method makes it possible to identify the geographical areas most exposed to the risk of child labour by using statistical data and factors such as household poverty, access to education, dominant economic activities, demographic characteristics and access to basic social services. The discussions showed that this approach can complement existing community-based mechanisms, including SOSTECI, by strengthening the capacity to target priority areas and guide interventions.

Group work was a central part of the workshop. Participants analysed indicators related to incidents of child trafficking and child labour, including the number or percentage of economically active children, children engaged in regular work, light work, hazardous work, children who are victims of trafficking or forced labour, as well as indicators related to household chores, working conditions, injuries and abuse. They also examined sociodemographic, geospatial and contextual indicators, including those relating to population, households, civil registration, economic sectors, social protection, access to education, social services and remediation mechanisms.

At the end of the group work, the indicative list of risk and incident indicators related to trafficking, exploitation and child labour in Côte d'Ivoire was amended. Participants made corrections, reviewed data sources, clarified national and international reference standards, and formulated recommendations to ensure follow-up on the workshop results.

The recommendations included organizing a working session between the Directorate for the Fight against Child Labour and the Coffee-Cocoa Council to determine key indicators for more effective environmental, economic and social traceability; making available the data collection questionnaires of the ICI Foundation and the ILO; strengthening interoperability between SIGOSTECI and sectoral mechanisms; using the updated list as a baseline reference framework for studies related to child labour in Côte d'Ivoire; involving psychologists, sociologists and occupational physicians alongside statisticians and legal experts in the analysis of texts and conventions; and organizing a validation workshop for the updated list.

The workshop therefore marked an important step towards a more harmonized framework for monitoring child labour in Côte d'Ivoire. By strengthening the quality, comparability and use of data, this process will contribute to better planning of interventions, more effective coordination among actors, and decision-making based on reliable information.

Beyond the technical review of a list of indicators, the workshop highlighted a central issue: measuring better in order to act better. Harmonized indicators are not only statistical tools. They make it possible to identify vulnerable children more quickly, target at-risk areas, monitor the responses provided, and strengthen the collective accountability of actors engaged in the elimination of child labour in Côte d'Ivoire.

The ACCEL Africa project will continue to strengthen government capacity to conduct surveys that examine the different dimensions of child labour. Modules or questions on child labour will be integrated into national employment surveys. In addition, national statistical offices and other policy actors will receive training to analyse child labour data collected through the survey and to use this data in policymaking.