Bloody Valentine: Child Slavery in Ivory Coast's Cocoa Fields

[Karmadillo]

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/02/ivory-coast-cocoa-chocolate-child-slavery


Bloody Valentine: Child Slavery in Ivory Coast's Cocoa Fields
—By Tom Philpott
| Tue Feb. 14, 2012 3:59 PM PST

If you gave someone chocolate for Valentine's Day, it may well have come from the Ivory Coast, the source of about 35 percent of the globe's cocoa production. And if it did come from the Ivory Coast, it may well have been harvested by unpaid child workers being held captive on plantations—that is to say, child slaves.

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We learn from an interview with a crew leader that the kids aren't paid and aren't free to leave. What we're watching, we realize, is children entrapped as slaves. And it's a routine facet—a feature, not a bug—of agriculture in the world's largest cocoa-producing nation.

Ivory Coast is essentially the candy-coated equivalent of a narco-state, dominated by three multinational processors, two of them based in the United States.

And lest we write it off as an abstraction, a horrible crime committed in a faraway place by strangers, the film drives home that Ivory Coast is essentially the candy-coated equivalent of a narco-state, dominated by three multinational processor/traders, two of them based in the United States: Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and the Switzerland-based Barry Callebaut. What those kids are harvesting ends up in our candy bars.

more...

[chiffon]

1. kicked for visibility.

Great article and sadly a horrible circumstance for those less unfortunate.

[Starry Messenger]

2. recommend.

[Kalidurga]

3. Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland have known since 2005 and apparently don't care.

Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland two companies to avoid completely. I don't have time tonight, but I am going to make a list. If anyone knows where an already made list is I would be ever so grateful.

[CBHagman]

4. Websites on slave labor chocolate and fair trade chocolate.

This link has a list of products produced without slave labor:

http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/main.html#Table

I haven't read through the entire site, but make of it what you will.

Here's a link to the Archer Daniels Midland website. I don't have a handy list of products, and besides, they have their fingers in lot of pies, perhaps literally.

http://www.adm.com/en-US/products/Pages/default.aspx

[chiffon]

5. Thanks for the list. I will definitely think twice when and where I purchase cocoa products. nt