Ankara, Turkey - The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Association of Chocolate, Biscuit and Confectionery Industries of Europe (CAOBISCO) signed a Public-Private Partnership Agreement (PPP) for a 3 year project “Integrated Model for the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL) in Seasonal Agriculture in Hazelnut Harvesting in Turkey”. The agreement was signed by Mr. Numan Özcan, Director of the ILO Office for Turkey and Ms. Sabine Nafziger, Secretary General of CAOBISCO.

The new project lasting 3 harvest seasons will extend the existing activities in Ordu (East Black Sea Region), to Düzce and Sakarya (West Black Sea Region). In addition, the project will scale up activities in Şanlıurfa (South East Anatolia Region) where many of the migrant families harvesting hazelnuts come from.

Numan Özcan, Director, ILO Office for Turkey stated: “We are proud of scaling up this excellent example of public private partnership on the elimination of worst forms of child labour in Turkey which is the first ever of its kind. This particular project, with ILO’s accumulated experience in combating child labour in Turkey, undertakes concrete steps to mainstream child labour concerns into larger social policies and programmes, improve policy and legal analysis, and establish child labour monitoring mechanisms. The continuous collaborative work between government, private sector, civil society organizations and other stakeholders contributes to sustainable strategy not only in hazelnut harvesting but also overall seasonal agriculture in a broader perspective.”

Sabine Nafziger, Secretary General, CAOBISCO said: “A major achievement of the pilot project, under the leadership of ILO and the Turkish Ministry of Labour and Social Security, has been to build a solid multi-stakeholder approach from which to work towards our common goal of the elimination of worst forms of child labour in hazelnuts. From this basis CAOBISCO members are confident that through a longer term approach the new project will scale up and drive impact across the hazelnut sector in Turkey.”
Three outputs are expected with the project:

• capacity building (towards local and national institutions),
• direct interventions (towards all actors of harvesting process- children, families, intermediaries and garden owners) for withdrawal/prevention and
• awareness-raising (towards all actors of the harvesting process and the public).

Building on the previous experience and achievements, the project will scale up activities and impact from 2015 to 2017 through:

• widespread awareness and mainstreaming decent work practices in the hazelnut sector
• strong cooperation among key stakeholders at local, national and international levels
• sustainable model achieved by dedicated team of experts, training of relevant staff and experts at local and national levels on the intervention strategy

The overall objective of this project is to contribute elimination of worst forms of child labour (WFCL) in seasonal agriculture in line with the Turkish Government’s strategy drawn by the National Employment Strategy 2014-2023. A model has been developed through the Dutch Government and CAOBISCO funded “Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour in Seasonal Commercial Agriculture in Hazelnut Harvesting in Ordu” project 2013 and 2014. The project aims contributing to the withdrawal of children from work and prevention of at-risk children to be engaged in seasonal hazelnut agriculture. It will bring added value through the replication of the strategic intervention model in the different regions and contribute to a sustainable child labour monitoring mechanism in seasonal agriculture. The project will step up efforts to attain the goal of contributing to the policy making and efficient implementation on the elimination of WFCL in seasonal agriculture.

1 Contributing members of CAOBISCO to the ILO PPP Project: Ferrero, Nestlé, August Storck KG, Barry Callebaut, Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG, Mars incorporated, Chocosuisse, NATRA S.A., Griesson - de Beukelaer GmbH & Co., Cémoi chocolatier, Gebr. Jancke GmbH, Neuhaus NV, Stollwerck GmbH, Koenig Backmittel GmbH