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

Robin Ann DeLuca-Acconi
2016 Journal of Human Rights and Social Work  
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)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(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
more » ... ana. 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/s41134-016-0025-9 fatcat:46xyjgr2azgnlh7sxfzdfsdiwq