Child slaves and chocolate. Those two things should not be in the same sentence. In fact, child and slaves should not be in the same sentence. But children should enjoy chocolate as a special treat, something to look forward to, not associate it with hazardous labor, pain, abuse, and sadness.
World Vision wrote an article: Is chocolate your guilty pleasure?
Thousands of West African children are forced into labor for cocoa, chocolate’s primary ingredient. Long, punishing hours, dangerous tools and machetes. Robbed of their education. The International Labor Rights Forum is committed to public awareness and corporate campaigns to stop the scourge of forced child labor in the cocoa industry.
Smash The Man tells one child’s story of being beaten with bicycle chains, sleeping on a wooden plank with no mattress, subsisting on a diet of bananas, working sun up to sun down.
“Green Tea” Party says that the cocoa from Hershey’s* Chocolates have been produced under harmful and abusive forced labor conditions. They say that “a number of smaller chocolate companies in the US have been sourcing Fair Trade Certified™ cocoa and building relationships with cocoa farmers to ensure that these farmers earn enough to support their families, invest in their futures, and send their children to school.”
In addition, some larger global chocolate corporations are beginning to source cocoa beans that have been certified to meet particular labor, social, and environmental standards. Hershey* is not among them. They continue to exploit children as cocoa slaves in order to cut their costs. Of course this also causes a reduction of US jobs.
THE GOOD NEWS: Divine Chocolate USA! “At the heart of Divine’s heavenly tasting chocolate there is a unique story. Not only do the Kuapa Kokoo farmers’ receive a Fair Trade price for their cocoa, but they also own 45% of the company, and therefore have a direct influence over how the company is run and share in the profits from the chocolate. Owning Divine gives the farmers of the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative not just additional income, but also knowledge and power – the opportunity to grow and flourish is in their hands.”
FREE PHONE APP for Iphone and Android: FREE2WORK APP: “Be a conscious consumer! Learn how your favorite brands relate to trafficking and other labor abuses. Free2Work provides consumers with information on forced and child labor for the brands and products they love. Free2Work grades companies on a scale of “A” to “F” based on their efforts to prevent and to address forced and child labor.”
*UPDATE: CNN Freedom Project just posted that Hershey has made an announcement that they are trying to focus on this issue now. Time will tell… [blog update 2/1/12]
