Child slavery.
The Age published an article last year entitled Bitter life of a chocolate's child slaves: Australians are the world's fourth highest consumers of chocolate, gobbling down an average 10 Easter eggs and between nine and 11 kilograms of chocolate per person a year.
But in the Ivory Coast, farmers earn less for a kilo of cocoa beans than we pay for a Snickers bar.
"Chocolate is the perfect case study for urban awareness of our connection to food producers," said Anne Lanyon, co-ordinator of the Columban Centre for Peace, Ecology and Justice, which promotes consumer awareness to schoolchildren. "It is our responsibility to be aware."
Australian Bureau of Statistics and Customs documents confirm that Australians are among the world's biggest consumers of Ivory Coast and Ghanaian-based chocolate directly imported as cocoa beans, paste, powder, butter and liquor. Additional millions of dollars worth of Ivory Coast, Ghanaian, other West African, Malaysian and Indonesian cocoa is imported via Singapore, the cocoa processing hub of South-East Asia...
"These child workers labour for long, punishing hours, using dangerous tools and facing frequent exposure to dangerous pesticides as they travel great distances in the gruelling heat. Those who labour as slaves must also suffer frequent beatings and other cruel treatment."
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I can't remember who now but I used to read a blog about a woman who boycotted all chocolate that could have potentially been made with child slave labour. I think from recollection that while Cadbury chocolate wasn't great on the ethical/moral sliding scale, it also didn't use child labour which was one up on Nestle. But check the facts yourself please, don't just take my word for it. I am going to do some more research myself another night.
I'll be in charge of buying Easter eggs for the family this year as the parentals will only get home on Easter Sunday. You can bet your
7 comments:
Boycott chocolates???? Oh man...isn't there some other way to help these kids??? I hope you plan on posting your research findings as I'd be interested to read what you discover. What I want to know is why can't everyone in the world just be nice???? :/
good post Cat.. I don't know anything at all about this ... But I do know that nestle was giving formula to 3rd world mothers (for free) for long enough til their breast milk dried up. then selling them formula.. children were starving to death as a result.. Veronica has all the details..
I had been boycotting nestle products because of this...
thanks.. kim
Hey Cat, that sounds like Eilleen's blog "Consumption Rebellion" http://consumption-rebellion.blogspot.com/ I'm pretty sure she hasn't deliberately touched child-slavery chocolate in about a year. She's a lovely person irl too!
Organic chocolate is safe to buy, there are no organic farms on the ivory coast etc. Also Fair Trade is supposed to be ok too. I can recommend http://www.fairgotrading.com.au/
Thank you for informing me of this situation. Guess I'll be cutting chocolate out of my diet until candy companies shape up! (chocolate was about the only thing I was buying that wasn't organic)
Great post on a subject close to my heart. I buy FAIRTRADE organic chocolate (and tea as well). Apparently some farmers in Queensland are very close to being able to grow cocoa beans so we may soon be able to buy chocolate that is 100% Australian.
Libby
Child slavery is despicable. 11-16 year old boys taken from there home lands or sold by their parents to work 12-18 hour days subsisting on sometimes one meal of corn paste or a few burnt bananas a day. They are also locked up at night to prevent escape. 18-20 boy slaves in a 20 x 24 foot room are made to sleep on wooden planks and urinate in a shared can!
Cadbury are definitely non-oblivious purchasers of slave harvested chocolate as are the rest of the top4 - Nestle, Hersheys, Mars. They have known of the connection since 2001 and set a cooperative agreement that they would no longer purchase slave harvested chocolate by July 2005. the time has been and gone with little result. Spread the word. Lets educate ourselves and at least 5 others every day with a challenge for them to do the same.
stay passionate about this Cat. Let's all stay passionate.
Once I first read about the issue of child slavery and chocolate, I was shocked. Hershey and Nestle can go so low to do this. I have a blog about how evil child slavery really is in the world. I would love to hear what you think about it.It is at http://worldofchildslavery.blogspot.com/
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