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Chocolate-Lovers: Cocoa Industry Still Employs Child Labor under Slave-Like Conditions 6-28-08
By Adrienne Fitch-Frankel
You gaze at each other, illuminated softly by candlelight. Music plays in the
background. Slowly pulling back the ribbon from your gift, your sweetheart glows
with delight and anticipation…until the wrapping falls away from the box of
chocolate to reveal a blank spot where the slave-free chocolate label belongs.
Even though the chocolate industry committed to ending the worst forms of child
labor in cocoa production by today — July 1, 2008 — the slave-free label is
still missing from lots of chocolate boxes…and chocolate bars and ice cream and
syrup and other products made with cocoa. And it’s not just because industry
talked Congress into a voluntary agreement in place of the 2001 legislation that
would have created a mandatory slave-free label for chocolate, which was passed
in the House of Representatives by a landslide. It is also because virtually
none of the chocolate you buy as a consumer could be certified as “slave-free”
if that label existed today.
In one sense, things aren’t that different now from the way Congress intended to
protect us from tainted chocolate back in 2001. If you find a blank space
glaring back from the spot where the Fair Trade certified label belongs on any
cocoa product, you know it has not been produced under standards that prohibit
abusive child labor.
The chocolate industry’s answer to the legislative threat of slave-free labeling
was its 2001 pledge to voluntarily certify cocoa produced without the worst
forms of child labor by July 1, 2005, known as the Harkin-Engel Protocol, after
the two Congressmen who championed the original legislation. When they failed to
meet this deadline, it was extended to July 1, 2008 and limited to 50 percent of
the Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana.
While industry and governments have taken some steps to address the issue, it is
too little too slow. The very title of the Harkin-Engel Protocol commits the
industry to “…Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child
Labor,” yet for over seven years children have continued to languish in slavery
and consumers have waited for untainted chocolate. It is also rather shocking
that the cocoa industry had the chutzpah to officially commit to ending just
half of slavery, not all slavery, in the cocoa fields of these two countries by
July 2008.
With the next deadline rapidly approaching, the chocolate manufacturers have
redefined the word “certification” to mean “data collection.” Industry even
titled its 2007 version of its definition a “certification concept.” Wouldn’t it
be great if we could all be released from our moral and legal responsibilities
by redefining them? We can hear the chuckles about the “concept” concept forming
around water coolers nationwide already. “Think a repayment ‘concept’ will work
for my mortgage?” “Will the boss buy into a punctuality ‘concept’?”
Members of the public are broadly familiar with the characteristics of organic
and other certification systems, and know that certification is not a ‘concept’
open to interpretation. Certification systems include elements such as specific
standards required of industry participants and independent, third party
institutions that confirm compliance with standards.
But the bottom line is that, as a report funded by the US Department of Labor
stated, the industry’s current definition of certification is “a misnomer.” What
industry is currently pursuing under its own definition of certification is not
truly certification that there is no abusive child labor. It is a survey to
determine the prevalence of abusive child labor. And, for that reason, industry
is at risk of missing the upcoming deadline yet again. Data collection is not
the goal; the goal is protecting children from the worst forms of child labor in
the cocoa fields.
Nearly 60 organizations and companies concerned with child welfare have called
upon major chocolate manufacturers to sign the Commitment to Ethical Cocoa
Sourcing. The Commitment includes requirements that would reach the goal of
ensuring that cocoa farming families and workers can live lives of dignity and
meet their basic human needs rather than languishing in poverty while industry
exploits the dismal price of cocoa in order to rake in profits. The Commitment
also requires truly independent, third party certification.
Some have gone even further, by calling on chocolate companies to start sourcing
Fair Trade certified chocolate. Fair Trade certification standards prohibit the
use of abusive child labor and slavery. Just as important, Fair Trade also
addresses the fact that cocoa prices are too low to fully cover the cost of the
labor it takes to grow it. The Fair Trade certification system guarantees
farmers a stable, decent price for their cocoa.
It is especially disturbing that the companies involved market specifically to
children, making them unknowing participants in the exploitation of their peers.
One troubling example is Chicago-based World’s Finest Chocolate, the leading
producer of school fundraising chocolate bars in the country, does not source
Fair Trade certified cocoa. World’s Finest Chocolate, a company that bases its
seemingly squeaky-clean corporate image on supporting children’s education,
should end its hypocrisy and start producing a Fair Trade certified chocolate
bar to fundraise for children’s education. It is time for farmers who grow the
cocoa in World’s Finest Chocolate’s chocolate bars to be able to afford to send
their own kids to school too.
Go ahead and buy a chocolate gift for the one you love. Cocoa growing
communities are depending on you. But from now onward, look for chocolate with
the Fair Trade certification label. Because when the object of your affection
pulls back the ribbon on your box of chocolate, looks at you, and sighs, “you
shouldn’t have…” you don’t want your beloved to mean it.
Comment:
Carob is a good replacement for baking in the meanwhile! We are so passionate about this issue that all Bella Mira Products are fair trade! Coffee is another child exploit industry.