The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze two factors contributing to child labor in Ghana, one of the world's largest producers of cocoa. These two factors are: poor countries economic and political dependency on the rich countries, political leader’s ambitions and decisions. We will also describe and analyze the UN's efforts and measures to combat child labor. The method we used was a case study of child labor in Ghana‘s cocoa industry together with interviews. Questions to be answered were: How is poor countries economic and political dependency towards rich countries a contributing factor to child labor? How do political leader’s ambitions and decisions affect child labor? Despite UN efforts to combat child labor it does not diminish in some parts of the world such as West-Africa, why? The theories used were the Dependency Theory and Political Leadership Theory. Our results show that dependency theory can contribute to child labor. It does that because of colonialisms effects still are showing in poorer countries. This in turn leads to that children need to work to help their family economically. UN broad actions and measures to combat child labor did not help to reduce child labor. UN must specify its policies and actions in each country depending on what kind of child labor it is. Political leadership was important to ensure that child labor should decrease. The political leader should have understood the issue and ensured the protection of children under 15 from hazardous work, this by ensuring that there were laws that protected them, but also by accepting the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-11406 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Axell, Sandra, Mugororoka, Chanelle Fortune |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för samhällsvetenskaper, Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för samhällsvetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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