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A study commissioned by Solidar Suisse and published in January 2019 reveals that at least 200,000 children, aged 5 to 17, work in cotton cultivation in Burkina Faso, representing one child in five in cotton-growing areas. In the Boucle du Mouhoun region, the results of the same study show that 42.1% of children aged 5 to 17 are involved in cotton field work. The situation is similar in the Cascades region, where the land is also ideal for cotton growing.
Furthermore, according to a baseline and mid-term monitoring study of beneficiaries of income-generating activities (IGAs), commissioned by Solidar Suisse and carried out by the Centre d’Etudes, de Recherches et de Formation pour le Développement Economique et Social (CERFODES) in the Boucle du Mouhoun and Cascades regions in January 2020: 86.4% of households surveyed employed more children in their cotton fields (8 children on average per household).
This situation is explained by the fact that children are often forced to work due to economic constraints and the lack of alternatives to work, which deprives them of education and can often be physically and psychologically harmful. Statistically, CERFODES studies published in January 2019, confirm that the fact that children work in cotton fields has a negative impact on their ability to attend school: “while the school attendance rate reaches almost 90% among children who do not work (between the ages of 12 and 16), it drops to 70% among children forced to work”.
In addition, a study carried out on the baseline situation of fertilizer and pesticide use by cotton growers reveals that 100% of cotton growers use chemical pesticides in their fields. Of these, 86.8% use registered pesticides, against 13% who claim to use unregistered pesticides. However, in some intervention villages such as Sankara, the number of growers using unregistered pesticides reached 36%, increasing the danger to children, as these unregistered pesticides entail greater risks for users than those complying with standards.
In some places, child labor goes beyond the scope of social initiation or apprenticeship. Children are increasingly becoming an important link in the economic chain, often to their own detriment. Studies show that in the cotton fields, “children generally start work at 7 a.m., and work between 9 and 10 hours a day, sometimes more”.
Children are thus voluntarily or involuntarily engaged in the agropastoral sector in general, and in cotton production in particular. The presence of children in such sectors constitutes a serious obstacle to their schooling, their development, and their mental and physical health. In short, the presence or work of children in the cotton fields is a factor that has or will have repercussions on their current life, or that of an adult, later on. To change this, since 2018, Solidar Suisse through the PATEC project, has been fighting against child labor in cotton fields in Burkina Faso. The various actions carried out offer a glimmer of hope for the effective reduction of child labor in cotton fields in the Boucle du Mouhoun, Cascades and Centre-Est regions. However, the eradication of hazardous child labor in the cotton fields is far from being a reality, which suggests that much remains to be done by both state and civil society actors. The main objective of phase 3 of the current PATEC project is to contribute to the fight against hazardous child labor in Burkina Faso’s cotton fields. To achieve this, actions are structured around three secondary objectives:
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