In honor of Valentine’s Day, which is one of my all time favorite holidays, I thought I would start my very first blog.
As February 14th quickly approaches my heart begins to race, not just because love is in the air or I know the movie theaters will be full of great chick flicks, but because I know I will be able to indulge, guilt free, in my favorite flavor… chocolate.
That is until I recently came across a terrible fact. Nearly all the cocoa we consume has been brought to us by child and forced labor.
Child Labor and Conflict Chocolate
The International Labor Organization estimates that in West Africa, the source of 70 percent of the world's cocoa, hundreds of thousands of children as young as five years old work in the cocoa fields. The ILO found that many of the children were forced to work in slave-like conditions, often for more than twelve hours a day, and were beaten. These children use machetes to clear fields, sharp objects to slice open cocoa pods, and spray pesticides without protective equipment. To make matters worse, as I dug more into the problems related to the cocoa industry, I found that cocoa is on par with blood diamonds. Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa and since 2002 revenues from the cocoa trade have played a large role in the country’s ongoing armed conflict. NGOs have reported that millions of dollars worth of cocoa revenue have funded both sides of the conflict. According to human rights groups, the chocolate industry has not taken action to prevent the use of cocoa trade revenue from being used to fund the conflict. Human rights groups have called on cocoa companies such as Hershey and Nestle to create transparent financial documents that disclose the amount of money paid to the government and cocoa intuitions in the country; however, these requests have been dismissed. A new political agreement was signed in Côte d’Ivoire in March 2007; however, the terms of the agreement have yet to be fulfilled and NGOs report that peace is in the region is extremely fragile.
Below I’ll provide more detailed information about the child labor in the cocoa industry and links to sites that have further resources, but I thought I’d take a break here to give you some good news.
What We Can Do
There are ways to get chocolate that actually help people.
Looking for chocolate that has fair trade certification ensures that the cocoa was produced without the use of child or forced labor. It also means that the people working on cocoa plantations are paid a living wage and the working conditions have been verified as safe. Examples of fair trade chocolate products are Divine Chocolate and Equal Exchange. You can order fair trade products online or look online to see stores that carry them. If you notice that your local store does not carry any fair trade chocolate it can really make a difference if you ask them to start.
Aside from buying fair trade chocolate, write to companies like Hershey, Nestle, Cadbury (recently acquired by Kraft), and Mars to ask that they sell more fair trade products. You might think this won’t make a difference, but conscious consumers in the UK have been asking for and buying fair trade products and the companies listened. Cadbury launched a line of fair trade dairy milk bars in the UK in 2009 and Nestle followed by announcing it would offer to certify its Kit-Kat bars in the UK as fair trade. The ILRF has online site set up to send letters: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/chocolate
If you need some chocolate, which is understandable, and can’t find fair trade certified chocolate it might be good to consult the International Labor Right Forum’s 2009 Chocolate Scorecard.
Hershey, Mars, and Nestle are all ranked as “bitter”; whereas Lindt, Starbucks, and Godiva are “semi-sweet”.
Recently Green and Black (owned by Cadbury) made a commitment to have all of their chocolate certified fair trade by 2011.
Newman's Own reports that all of its chocolate is producted without the use of child labor.
Ritter Sport also reports that it buys cocoafrom a farmers’ collective in Nicaragua. In doing so, Ritter pays prices that are much higher than the international market average. Additionally, the cocoa in Nicaragua is grown organically.
Background on Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry
In 2001, in response to growing criticism from human rights activists and NGOs, many chocolate companies agreed to sign the Harkin-Engel Protocol, an agreement between the U.S. Congress, NGO’s, and chocolate companies. The Protocol proposed a framework and industry-funded programs to stop the use of child labor on cocoa farms by July 2005. The protocol aimed to develop industry-wide standards and independent monitoring, reporting, and public certification programs to eliminate the "worst forms" of child labor in the cocoa industry.
By 2004, the cocoa industry had met most of the requirements of the protocol, including creating a foundation, the International Cocoa Initiative, to ensure that cocoa production eliminated abusive child labor practices. However, a major requirement - setting up a certification system to monitor child labor - has yet to be fulfilled. The deadline for having a global monitoring system in place for at least 50% of cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana was postponed from July 2005 to July 2008. The companies did not meet the July 2008 target. As of February 2010, these targets had yet to be fulfilled.
Further Resources
Campaign to Reform the Global Cocoa Trade (Gourmet Magazine has a great article listed here): http://www.equalexchange.coop/reverse
ILRF Cocoa Campaign: http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cocoa-campaign
Broken Hearts: A Review of Industry Efforts to Eliminate Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry: http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-forced-labor/cocoa-campaign/resources/12260
Hot Chocolate: How Cocoa Fuelled the Conflict in Cote d’Ivoire: http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/552/en/hot_chocolate_how_cocoa_fuelled_the_conflict_in_co
FAIRTRADE Certification: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/F/1_Five%20Key%20Fairtrade%20Benefits.pdf
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The Conscious Consumer
A few months ago I began thinking about often we hear about terrible things going on in the world and are left with that feeling, but what can I do? That is when I had the idea to create this blog. Many of the problems in this world could be alleviated by companies and companies listen to their bottom line. That is where we step in.
As customers we have buying power that should not be underestimated. Every time we shop we are casting our dollar vote. So while most of us would never vote for a candidate who supports 70 hour work weeks and employees being paid well below what constitutes a living wage, as consumers we are consistently voting for that candidate. I believe that through our spending power we can make positive changes in our world. By becoming conscious consumers we can show companies their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices matter and in return companies will continue to improve their practices. For example, if a company has a line of fair trade products and a comparable line that is not fair trade, buying the fair trade version helps make a strong case to that company that it is profitable to increase its production of fair trade products. Similarly, buying from companies with strong ESG records shows all companies in that industry that its consumers care about issues, such as labor rights or the environment.
It’s often hard to know which companies are leaders and which are laggards, so that is where I’ll come in. Each month I’m going to post information on different topics, such as chocolate, cotton, electronics, coffee, and flowers. In each blog I’ll give a brief overview of the issue and then what we, as consumers, can do about that issue.
Please feel free to write in feedback as this is very much a work in progress. If there are any issues you would like covered just let me know.
As customers we have buying power that should not be underestimated. Every time we shop we are casting our dollar vote. So while most of us would never vote for a candidate who supports 70 hour work weeks and employees being paid well below what constitutes a living wage, as consumers we are consistently voting for that candidate. I believe that through our spending power we can make positive changes in our world. By becoming conscious consumers we can show companies their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices matter and in return companies will continue to improve their practices. For example, if a company has a line of fair trade products and a comparable line that is not fair trade, buying the fair trade version helps make a strong case to that company that it is profitable to increase its production of fair trade products. Similarly, buying from companies with strong ESG records shows all companies in that industry that its consumers care about issues, such as labor rights or the environment.
It’s often hard to know which companies are leaders and which are laggards, so that is where I’ll come in. Each month I’m going to post information on different topics, such as chocolate, cotton, electronics, coffee, and flowers. In each blog I’ll give a brief overview of the issue and then what we, as consumers, can do about that issue.
Please feel free to write in feedback as this is very much a work in progress. If there are any issues you would like covered just let me know.
