It's not a popular subject - but it is a real one: Child labour is a part of Belize's sugar industry. But just how much a part? Today, the government and the European Union embarked on a partnership to find that out. It's a consultancy aimed at collecting statistics about child labor in Belize's Sugar industry. The new information will be used to ensure that Belize is operating within Fair Trade International's policy's regarding child labor. One of the project's stakeholders, Diana Shaw from the Child Development Fund, told us more...
Diana Shaw, Child Development Foundation
"This project is a consultancy to research on the incidents of child labor in the sugarcane producing areas of Belize in Orange Walk and Corozal, so that we can document for the purposes of establishing the record for Belize for Fair Trade International. The European Union and the other partners that Belize needs to be able to report on the progress that it's making and the steps that are being taken to eliminate child labour in Belize."
Reporter
"Tell us the importance to having this project in Belize?"
Diana Shaw, Child Development Foundation
"It's very important for Belize, because this year 2017, the preferential quota for sugarcane ends and so Belize needs to show in terms of fair trade international that it is producing sugar in a way that is not putting children in danger that we don't have child labour practices and that where we have identify child labour practices that we are taking steps to remediate that in order for us to continue to export our sugar to Europe and to other countries without the preferential quota."
"We are expecting that we will have some firm numbers and also that we will have some very strong recommendations from the farmers themselves and also from the technical experts as to what will be the next step for us to be able to show that we can eliminate child labour in the sugarcane industry so that we are not suspended and so that we don't face any kind of infractions for being able to export sugar."
Countries and companies that are found to be operating outside of fair trade standards can lose the right to export their products to participating nations and organizations.
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