Case Study#chocolate slavery by kids- using in labor kids PDF

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Over 60% of the world's cocoa comes from two countries in West Africa – Ghana and the Ivory Coast. According the Global Slavery Index 2018 thousands of children today are trafficked and forced to work on the cocoa farms. ' From a teenage boy who was forced to work on a cocoa plantation...

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Soorya Keshawerz

Slavery in the Chocolate Industry chocolate may be obtained almost anywhere. We see chocolates on dessert menus, in grocery store hallways, malls, in cafes, and everywhere else. A 4,000-year-old plant in South America, cacao (pronounced ca-cow) is used in chocolate. It is believed that cacao was originally made into a bitter drink by the Aztecs and Incas. A cacao tree produces 60 to 70 pods per year that contain 20-40 seeds. The pods are dried, roasted, ground, and packaged as chocolate. 1 Many of the chocolates we consume are manufactured with cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast. Boys between the ages of 12 and 16 are taken from their homes and forced to work in the hot, arduous fields. Although slavery is illegal, it is poorly enforced in the Ivory Coast. This is because it is a poor market for cocoa and prices of cocoa beans are low.

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West African children are living in

extreme poverty, and most of them start working at an early age to support their families. Some children end up in cocoa fields because they need work, and traffickers promise them lucrative jobs. Other children are sold by their relatives to smugglers or ranchers, while they are unaware of the dangers of the workplace and the lack of any facilities for their education. Traffickers often abduct young children from small villages in neighboring African countries, such as Burkina Faso and Mali, two of the world's poorest countries. When children are taken to cocoa farms, they may not see their families for years or never. 3 Approximately 1.8 million children may be exposed to the worst forms of child labor in the cocoa industry of Western Africa.

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Consumers can't be sure if the chocolate they are buying was made without the use of child labor, and there are many different labels on chocolate bars that don't guarantee that the

1 Purdue university, Where Chocolate Comes From,https://www.purdue.edu/hla/sites/yardandgarden/where-chocolate-comesfrom/, (Accessed Sep. 24, 2021) 2 Concepts and Cases, 7th edition, Manuel G. Velasquez (2012) 3 Food Empowerment Project, Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry, https://foodispower.org/human-laborslavery/slavery-chocolate/, (Accessed Sep. 24, 2021) 4 Id

Soorya Keshawerz

chocolate was made without the use of slavery or child labor.5 Many organizations and journalists have reported widespread use of child labor and, in some cases, slavery on cocoa farms in West Africa. Since then, the industry has increasingly resorted to secrecy to block journalists' access to cocoa farms when human rights violations are still occurring and prevent information from being leaked. In 2004, according to some unofficial information, the first lady of the Ivory Coast brother-in-law kidnapped and killed a journalist who had reported on government corruption in the lucrative cocoa industry.

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similarly, Ivory Coast authorities

arrested three journalists who had published an article on government corruption in the cocoa sector.7 I believe that the lack of openness and the involvement of the country's leaders and major corporations as stakeholders in this heinous crime has resulted in no action to be taken. And anyone who tried to save the oppressed children were slaughtered, and their voices were silenced. I believe that all human efforts should be directed toward making life easier for one another. It's unethical to take away other people's rights and life for our own pleasure and profit. When I think of what Drissa said, my heart breaks. Drissa, a freed slave who had never even tasted chocolate, had been working for tirelessly for days. When asked what he had to say to people who eat chocolate made from slaves, he replied, "They enjoy what I have suffered to make." "When people eat chocolate, they eat my flesh," he added. 8 Companies were well aware that child slavery was widely used in the "Ivory Coast" wall. "Nestlé and Cargill probably abandoned this move to take advantage of the high prices. Thus, the response that people have to a product (from where it comes and how it is created) can influence the pattern of trade. To

5 Id. 6 France 24, Ivory Coast first lady gives evidence on journalist's death, https://www.france24.com/en/20090423-ivory-coastfirst-lady-gives-evidence-journalists-death, (Accessed Sep. 24, 2021) 7 Committee to Protect Journalists, Ivory Coast detains three journalists over sources, https://cpj.org/2010/07/ivory-coastdetains-three-journalists-over-sources/, (Accessed Sep. 24, 2021) 8 The Borgen Project, Cacao and Child Slavery, https://borgenproject.org/tag/child-labor-west-africa/, (Accessed Sep. 24, 2021)

Soorya Keshawerz

improve the world of business, every business should have the correct ethics, excellent labor practices, and supporting conditions for the production environment. Child and slave labor are extremely common in the chocolate industry at the entry level, where cocoa is manufactured, and can only be addressed collaboratively by governments, corporations, and consumers. Fair trade can be characterized as a social movement with a single goal: to aid developing-region producers in establishing more favorable trading terms. I believe it is contingent on trade theorists' political leanings in terms of how they perceive fair trade and position themselves accordingly. A moderate will see fair trade as an important movement that must take place in order for civilization to progress. A left-leaning theorist, on the other hand, will most likely describe it as a movement that fails to deliver on its promises. In conclusion, it is not late to stop this crime. no matter when we take action, we still prevent this defect. People have the sole power to stop this. They could stop buying chocolate from corporations who do not have a strict policy against purchasing from plantations that employ and traffic children for labor. People can raise awareness and launch online campaigns and protests against child labor and human trafficking in these industries, which would have a substantial impact on chocolate firms' interactions with these plantations....