A Scene Not So Sweet: Child Trafficking in the Cocoa Industry
Imagine this cozy evening: it’s snowing outside, you’re in your fuzzy socks, watching your favorite movie and sipping on your warm hot chocolate cup, without any worries. Now, think about the cup. That warm cup is made through the cold process of child labor and trafficking.
Who and Why?
Much of the chocolate that we enjoy every day is supplied by over 2.3 million children in Ghana’s and Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa fields (A coalition to bring an end to child slavery and the worst forms of child labor in the cocoa industry). West Africa produces 67% of the world’s coca bean production while Côte d’Ivoire is single-handedly responsible for supplying 43% of the world’s cocoa beans. Most of the child workers are 12-16 years old, and many remain on the fields through their adult life (Quick Cocoa Facts). The intense poverty engulfing some regions of West Africa makes children vulnerable targets for traffickers and cocoa farmers. Some children enter the fields through deceit as human traffickers promise them with family- sustaining, well-paying jobs. Others are trafficked, sold, and coerced into working in this industry without a choice. The average price for the sale of a child is $250 (Quick Cocoa Facts). An entire human being, an entire youthful existence, is reduced to a mere $250 as you enjoy the delicious chocolate cube in your hand. Those who are deceived into this job are paid less than $2 per day, which is barely enough to sustain a life (Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry).
Dehumanizing Work Conditions
The work conditions are dangerous and inhumane. Children rise at 6 am and work with heavy chainsaws and machetes till evening. They’re then required to carry bags weighing upwards of 100 pounds, which usually takes two men to place them on a child’s bag, through the forest-terrain. Children who do not work quickly enough with the machetes and 100 pound bags are subjected to severe physical violence and whippings. Children are provided with cheap foods, such as corn paste and bananas, and have no access to sanitary water. Escaping is extremely difficult as the children are brought into an unfamiliar forest that they cannot navigate, and those punished escaping suffer torture-like violence (Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry). With low wages and unfamiliar terrain, escaping the cocoa fields, and breaking the cycle of poverty are almost impossible. Thus, trafficking flourishes, and more young lives are sucked into a black hole of degradation and dehumanization.
Policy
After the atrocities of the work were brought to light by the media in 2001, American chocolate industries created the Protocol and Joint Statement, an outline of how to end child and forced labor in cocoa-producing countries. Later in 2005, Senators Tom Harkin (D-NY) and Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) proposed the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a non-binding protocol urging American chocolate industries to collaborate with non-governmental organizations to remedy child slavery. The Protocol was signed by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, the World Cocoa Foundation and chocolate manufactures like Hershey’s and Nestlé, and approved by Côte dI’voire’s government, International Labor Organization, Free the Slaves, Child Labor Coalition, and International Cocoa organization (Quick Cocoa Facts). Despite sustainability programs instituted by multiple chocolate industries to halt child labor, progress has been slow. In the 2013, Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development found that the number in children increased from 1.75 million to 2.1 million during the past 5 years. To address the lack of schooling, a causative of the region’s poverty cycle, Nestlé built six schools since 2012 in Côte d’Ivoire’s Lakota area to create a new path for children (O'Keefe). However, we cannot view that as the solution to eradicating child trafficking to the fields or the deceitful recruitment of young workers. Poverty is a strong driving cause behind selling children for $250 and forcing young children into finding any means of work at a young age.
Fair Trade Certification
Fair trade certifications labels by UTZ and Rainforest Alliance have attempted to guarantee that a cocoa product has not been produced by forced labor. However, due to the complexity of the supply chain, and the large number of middle men between farmers, traders, and the chocolate industries, these labels cannot guarantee that the chocolate is produced ethically (Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry).
Action: What YOU Can Do
Research Slave-Free Chocolate
Purchase free trade certified chocolate (even through they’re not a 100% guarantee of
ethical production)
Stay informed on this issue and inform others
Identify which companies use child labor to produce daily products that you use
As you enjoy the delicacy that’s easily accessible to us for less than a dollar, remember that the true cost behind the sweet dessert is very Bitter.