Imperial Child Rights and Women Empowerment (ICRAWE) is a young non-governmental, social development, project management organisation that is based in Ghana. ICRAWE, over the last few years, has focused on lessening the burdens of cocoa farmers in rural communities and helping more children go to school. The organisation has a pool of experienced research and impact evaluation experts, development consultants and associates with a wide range of expertise in designing and managing projects, conducting research, impact evaluations and analysing data at different levels and across various sectors.
We work together with our members and partners to improve the lives of children and adults at risk of child labour and forced labour in cocoa-growing communities. We innovate, catalyse and support the development, implementation and scale-up of effective policies and practices that promote child rights and that prevent or remediate child labour and forced labour.
We are committed to contributing to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular supporting the fulfilment of SDG 8.7 (the eradication of child labour and forced labour), in addition to the advancement of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Human Rights in business (UNGPs) in the cocoa sector.
Our vision is of thriving cocoa-growing communities within a dignified, sustainable and responsibly managed cocoa supply chain, where child rights and human rights are protected and respected, and where child labour and forced labour have been eliminated.
Supporting cocoa communities to thrive through the advancement of children’s and workers’ rights. Our new approach aims to catalyse the scale-up of prevention and remediation systems to reach all children and adults at risk of child or forced labour. Our strategic objectives aim to contribute to the creation of three key pillars that are essential to achieving this goal:
A supportive enabling environment with local, national and international policies and laws, that inspire, motivate and obligate progress, from human rights due diligence legislation in cocoa-consuming countries, to policies that continue to advance access to quality education and social protection in cocoa-producing countries.
Coordinated approaches to support collaboration, alignment and accountability across the cocoa and chocolate industry, civil society, governments, and donors to maximise their collective impact.
ICRAWE has been deeply engaged in child rights and business issues, working directly with primary producers to improve working conditions and the wellbeing of adult workers and children.
One of our core service areas has been the prevention and remediation of child labour. This is, in some ways, not something we’ve foreseen. Years ago, many of us working in the cocoa industry were positive that child labour was a thing of the past.
As demand for cocoa increases, there is pressure on the smallholder farmers to scale up production on their small farms. Increased production on their farms can only be achieved through increased investment in farm inputs, something that is hard to achieve by these farmers due to the low household income and limited access to finances. Another barrier is that available financial institutions are expensive as they require collateral and have high interest rates.
In using sustainable resources throughout our operations, and applying circular economy principles, we take care of mother nature in reusing and recycling, aiming for a zero-waste process.
Agro-cocoa forestry restores ecosystems, improve water and carbon cycles, promote healthy food production, and enables communities to flourish. This is crucial, involving planting non-cocoa species on the same plot as cocoa trees.
We organised a health talk for adolescent school girls in 3 schools at Sefwi Akpafu, Sefwi Krobomanhyia and Sefwi Kojovi in Ghana.
The session provided an opportunity to talk about periods and menstrual hygiene and to address pressing issues such as the exploitation of young girls and child labour.
P. O. Box 513, Sefwi Wiawso
Western North Region
The Republic of Ghana
Email: info@icrawe.org
Phone: +233 247 316 211 / 054 954 7942
