With funding provided by a generous grant from the Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs (DOL-ILAB), Verité and partners will work collaboratively with the government of Ghana, companies, and civil society organizations to improve systems for identifying and addressing forced labor and labor trafficking using the forced labor indicators approach developed by the International Labor Organization. The project will leverage the infrastructure already in place to monitor child labor, particularly in the cocoa sector, to help stakeholders in a variety of sectors address forced labor in a coordinated and resource effective model.
Josephine Dadzie brings deep expertise on agricultural labor issues, stakeholder engagement, and the cocoa sector. In her most recent role at World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), she managed the work of implementing partners on WCF’s Cocoa Livelihoods Program. Through her work with the WCF, she was active in the review of the Ghana National Plan of Action on Human Trafficking and was also deeply engaged in a stakeholder review of the revised National Program for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa.
Helga Aku also comes to Verité from the World Cocoa Foundation. Prior to that, she held a wide variety of research and administrative positions in both Ghana and the U.S. She holds a B.S in Natural Resources Management from the University of Science and Technology in Ghana and an M.S. in Agricultural and Environmental Systems from North Carolina A&T State University.
Verité is thrilled to welcome Josephine and Helga to our research team and eager to continue to expand our work in Ghana and West Africa.
For more information, contact Allison Arbib.