Empowering Social Workers to Transform the Dominant Narrative: Advocating for Human Rights over Corporate Profit

Social workers can play an essential role in creating global systemic changes that lead to respect for human rights. For this to take place, social workers need to question and critique current policies and propose alternatives. This is a longitudinal case study (2001–2015) of the campaign to eradicate child labor and human rights infractions from the cocoa industry in the West Africa countries of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The movement to transform the labor practices of the cocoa industry offers a unique insight into the process of a human rights campaign. This study uses the campaign to inform social workers about incorporating effective discursive strategies into a movement’s message. It focuses on the manner in which activists questioned the policies of the cocoa companies and presented alternative methods of doing business. Narratives are created in order to alter public beliefs about the problem in a manner that is in line with stakeholder goals. This process of debating and framing issues in the public sphere results in the social construction of problems and reality (Dahan and Gittens in Journal of Business Ethics, 92, 227–249. doi:10.1007/s10551-009-0151-8, 2010). There is “no reality apart from social meanings;” metaphors and stories provide this meaning (Stone, 2011, p. 378). The stakeholders in the cocoa campaign created strategic and competing narratives, designed to garner support for their policies from policy makers. Qualitative framing analysis was employed to explore the stakeholders’ discourse and competing narratives surrounding both the causes of, and solutions to, the Worst Forms of Child Labor (WFCL). Press releases from human rights activists and the cocoa industry were analyzed in order to recount the debate’s history. Findings illustrate that strong resonant frames led to positive changes in the cocoa industry. Stakeholders ultimately transcended the conflict caused by contrasting ideological differences and created policies that indicated a respect for human rights. These policies included using Fair Trade certification, creating supply chain transparency, removing workplace hazards, increasing access to schooling and vocational training, improving the quality of education, and empowering women farmers. These results highlight that activists’ suggestions were incorporated into U.S. government protocols and the cocoa industry’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Policy implications include empowering social workers to advocate for policies that support those most at need, craft frames so that they resonate with the public and policy makers, create alternative policies to the present neoliberal reality, and hold corporations and governments accountable to human rights treaties and conventions. Social workers are encouraged to challenge mindsets that are embedded in a domination mentality and create alternative policies that elevate human rights. © 2016, Springer International Publishing.