Every year we spend millions of dollars on sweets, especially chocolate. During the holidays, like Valentine's Day, Halloween and Easter. From fun size candy bars to boxes of confectionary delight, we consume a huge amount of chocolate.
But have you ever wondered where the cocoa beans come from that went into that delicious dessert you're enjoying? Most of us don't. Because we trust that the businesses will make sure it's safe, that the laws will protect and that unions and the rights of workers will be ensured. But the reality is that the world isn't a very fair, safe or nice place at times. That some are greedy and quest for higher profits with no care for safety or moral and individual rights.
The shocking truth many people don't know, is that much of the chocolate they consume, is made by child workers forced into hard labor in West Africa. It's estimated that there are about 284,000 children who are being forced to work under dangerous and strenuous conditions on cocoa farms.These children are made to work long hours harvesting cocoa beans every single day. Many are stolen from their homes and sold as servants to cocoa farmers who need labor due to high demands. Although human trafficking is alone horrible and should be stopped, the added inhumanity of children, boys mostly from 12-16, but often younger, are sold into slave labor. Cocoa farms in the Cote d'Ivoire are especially implicated in violating children's human rights in two ways: they are involved in trafficking the children, often from Mali or surrounding areas, and also as the site of forced labor.
There's about 600,000 cocoa farms in Cote d'Ivoire and it's estimated that the children forced into slave labor on these farms is as high as 15,000. These children are subjected to inhuman living conditions, little food of any nutritional value, such as corn paste, on top of being overworked. Often these children are locked up at night to prevent escape, some older ones are made to work at night as well. Often the boys are beaten, whipped and forced to do nearly impossible tasks that are beyond their strength or abilities.
This didn't happen over night either, but slowly became the normal means of business. It was in the latter part of the 1970's that cocoa supplanted coffee as the major commodity, when a cocoa boom occurred as the government encouraged cultivation by offering various price incentives. The emphasis on cocoa production became entrenched in the economy to the extent that many farmers became dependent on cocoa for their livelihood. Today, a substantial one-third of the African economy is based on cocoa exports. But this dependency on the world market prices for cocoa has not bode well for farmers. Cocoa is considered one of the most unstable commodities in terms of fluctuation for market prices. Farmers can't control the world prices and natural conditions that affect cocoa yields, like droughts, floods or insects can have an effect on the farmers profits. This causes the farmers to seek cheap labor and even resort to slave labor as ways to cut costs.
What makes it harder is the secrecy of this practice and the way the farmers seek to hide what is going on if anyone tries to come visit the farm. One method that can help is for companies to commit to only purchasing cocoa beans from free trade certified merchants and suppliers. There's also more information at the links below.
http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-forced-labor/cocoa-campaign/news/the-child-slavery-behind-your-chocolate
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/155/343/985/?z00m=20109435
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