Let’s Make It Fair Trade

Most of us enjoy giving and receiving gifts of chocolate. After all, chocolate is sweet, delicious and, in the case of dark chocolate, good for us!

But here’s the irony.  This favorite gift choice — the one we delight in giving to children — is often produced by young children forced to harvest cacao beans. Nearly half of the world’s cacao comes from the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire. According to U.S. State Department reports, more than 100,000 children in Cote d’Ivoire work under nearly intolerable child labor conditions — and it is further estimated that about 10,000 of these same children are victims of human trafficking.

Systematic physical abuses are common, and of course these children are deprived of all their rights, including the right to an education. The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) has mounted several campaigns to stop the abuses in the cocoa industry, as well as in other industries rife with human rights issues, such as the cotton, coffee, sports, rubber and tobacco industries. But the ILRF, like all such organizations, cannot succeed without our help and cooperation.

Halloween is approaching — a popular chocolate-giving/receiving holiday. Why not use it as an opportunity to stand up for the elimination of forced child labor?

How?

Buy and give only fair trade chocolate.

Another way to help:  Tell Hershey, one of the largest and most popular chocolate companies, to source its cacao more ethically. Currently, Hershey sources nearly all its chocolate from West Africa, and refuses to identify its suppliers. The cocoa farm workers are suffering while Hershey enjoys huge profits.

Visit www.raisethebarhershey.org for more ways to take action.

Mars, another huge chocolate company, recently announced its commitment to provide more than $1 million annually in fair trade premiums to farmers’ cooperatives in West Africa. They have also committed to making substantial investments in cocoa- producing countries to ensure the sustainability of cocoa farming. If they can do it, why can’t Hershey?

For better or worse, our choices can — and do — change the world.

Tags: cacao production, child labor, chocolate, fair trade chocolate, forced labor, Hersey chocolate, human trafficking, Mars chocolate