COTE D'IVOIRE - UPDATE ON THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD

UNCLAS ABIDJAN 001400 SIPDIS SIPDIS DOL/ILAB FOR TINA MCCARTER DRL/IL FOR TU DANG E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ELAB EIND ETRD PHUM SOCI USAID IV SUBJECT: COTE D'IVOIRE - UPDATE ON THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR REF: SECSTATE 184972 1) The number of street children, particularly in Abidjan, is difficult to quantify. Past Human Rights Reports (see 2005) have placed that number at 50,000 in Abidjan alone. Subsequent reporting by observers in the NGO community monitoring this situation have revised the figure (see draft 2006 Human Rights Report). 2) UNICEF reports that, as of 2004, some 15% of the population lives on $1 per day or less. 3) Recent reporting from UN Operations in Cote d'Ivoire and international NGOs indicates that reports of forcible conscription of children into the ranks of either the armed forces, the Forces Nouvelles or irregular militias have diminished substantially since the current crisis began in September 2002. While reports of sexual abuse of women and girls by the Forces Nouvelles persist (along with similar allegations related to the government's armed forces), abductions related to this practice have not been reported in the past year. There have been no recent reports of Liberian children being recruited in either Liberia or Liberian refugee camps to serve in either the government's or Forces Nouvelles armed forces (see draft 2006 Human Rights Report) 4) National examinations covering the 2005 academic year for students in the northern, Forces Nouvelles-held territory were held in February 2006, and examinations for the 2006 academic year were held nationwide in September 2006 (see draft 2006 Human Rights Report). 5) In 2005, net primary school enrollment was 56 percent, according to UNICEF. In 2005, 94% of children who started primary school reached grade 5, according to the same source. 6) The Ministry of Labor's Focal Unit on child labor no longer appears to have primary jurisdiction over the sensitive issue of child labor in the cocoa production sector. The government cooperates closely with Germany's GTZ in establishing field committees to monitor and prevent child labor on cocoa farms. GTZ estimates its sensitization and education program, which contains a substantial child labor component, currently reaches 50% of Cote d'Ivoire's cocoa production region. 4) The Prime Minister's Task Force on Child Labor in the Cocoa Sector was disbanded in June of 2006, but has been reconstituted. It, along with the Ministry of Labor are currently coordinating the country's plan to address the need to implement a credible child labor monitoring system by ¶2008. Hooks