Bree Rideout
Child Trafficking and Slavery for
the Chocolate Industry
What is child
trafficking?
It’s the illegal movement of children, typically for the
purposes of forced labor. Ivory Coast, Africa is the main supplier of the cocoa
industry. Children from the ages of 9-12 are being taken from their families
and being trafficked to the Ivory Coast promised pay. According to World Vision, in Ivory Coast, about 10,000 child laborers were identified
as having been trafficked from neighboring countries and sold into slave labor
for little or no wages. The average cost of a child is 250$ for someone who is
in good health.
How do they do it?
Middle age men will approach young
children working in supermarkets promise them a salary, then lure them into
illegal trade. Children from Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin travel by bus
all alone being forced into slave labor. They choose young children because
kids are in good health, young and full of energy they are getting promised a
wage that will support their family. A young girl was asked how her family
would react when she returned home with little or no money she replied with
“they will be mad”. Africa is high in poverty and it is very hard to get a
wage, when offered more money, kids will of course take the offer.
How
is Canada Involved?
Save the Children Canada is encoring the Canadian government
to create a child’s trafficking bill, one that would make it illegal for crops
imported into Canada. The cocoa
industry has long been plagued with revelations of human trafficking and child
labor abuses. Global criticism has pushed a number of major companies to commit
to sourcing only ethical, child labor-free chocolate by 2020, including the
Hershey Company and Italian confectioner Ferrero.
In 2001 Anti-Slavery, Save the Children and
UNICEF met with non-governmental organizations to formulate a protocol, they
agreed to a four year plan to eliminate child slavery in the cocoa production.
Big cocoa industries include Nestle, Hershey, Kraft and ADM.
What can we do to
help?
Child
Trafficking was illegal and will always be illegal, but that didn’t stop people
from doing it then it won’t stop them now. Even though there was a protocol
getting made, there can be something you, as a Canadian citizen can do. There
is chocolate bars you can purchase in stores with a “free trade” logo on it,
those chocolate bars were not made by child slaves, also organic chocolate
bars. Find out where your chocolate is from, if it is from Africa there is a
high and strong chance that it is produced my children. You could take child
slavery out of the cocoa industry to
protect these children, sign the organization's
petition urging governments
to inspect companies' supply chains, bring legal action against traffickers and
establish an independent body that monitors the chocolate industry.
