The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs awarded Tulane University's Payson Center for International Development in New Orleans with a $1.5 million cooperative agreement to support research into West African cocoa-growing and child labor practices. The university's research will look into child labor in cocoa-growing areas such as Ghana and the Cote d'Ivoire.

This support was awarded to help the DOL reach its goals to address child labor through the 2010 Declaration of Joint Action to Implement the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a document sign by the labor ministries of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, a representative of the International Chocolate and Cocoa Industry and Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis.

Tulane University's Payson Center will review survey data from 2008 and 2009 to gain a better understanding of the number of children involved in dangerous labor. It will also observe practices during the 2013 to 2014 cocoa harvest and implement technology that can improve labor monitoring in the future.

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