posted June 12, 2013 11:31 AM            

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It’s been an especially rough year for the public relations team of candy-making monolith, Hershey. Once known best for its association with fun-loving holidays like Valentine’s and Halloween, the company has come under fire for its history of sourcing cocoa from child slave labor camps in West Africa.

However, this week the Associated Press reports that Hershey finally declared it will alter its methods, exclusively using certified Fair Trade sources for all of its cocoa― by 2020.

In the meantime, Hershey reported to the AP that it will continue to support community development programs in the area, including village school construction, mobile phone farmer messaging, training in modern farming techniques, literacy and health programs.

According to the International Labor Rights Forum―one of the most vocal activist groups campaigning against Hershey slave labor―the chocolatier sources much of its cocoa from known child slave labor farms in West Africa, which participate in other human rights abuses, including human trafficking.

Currently, that region produces about 70% of the world’s cocoa, reports the AP.

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John Robbins, activist and author of Diet for a New America, son of the founder of Baskin-Robbins:

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In 2009, the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University published an “assessment of child labor in the cocoa supply chain.” The study found child labor to be widespread in the very regions of West Africa, particularly Ivory Coast, where Hershey sources its cocoa, and that forced or involuntary child labor was common in these areas.

Ivory Coast, located on the southern coast of West Africa, is by far the world’s largest supplier of cocoa beans, providing 43 percent of the world’s supply. According to an investigative report by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), hundreds of thousands of children are being purchased from their parents for a pittance, or in some cases outright stolen, and then shipped to Ivory Coast, where they are enslaved on cocoa farms. These children typically come from countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo. Destitute parents in these poverty-stricken lands sell their children to traffickers believing that they will find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send some of their earnings home. But that’s not what happens. These children, usually 11-to-16-years-old but sometimes younger, are forced to do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week. They are paid nothing, receive no education, are barely fed, are beaten regularly, and are often viciously beaten if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again.

“The beatings were a part of my life,” Aly Diabate, a freed slave, told reporters. “Anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa beans) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again.”

Brian Woods has made films about some of the world’s worst human rights abuses. He tells of meeting Drissa, a young many from Mali who had been forced to work on an Ivory Coast cocoa farm. “When Drissa took his shirt off, I had never seen anything like it. I had seen some pretty nasty things in my time but this was appalling. There wasn’t an inch of his body which wasn’t scarred.”

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posted June 12, 2013 11:37 PM            

all i can say is whhhyyyy, whyyy r things the way they are???

how can anyone treat an innocent child that way.????????????? their parents, the people that use them.

The first thing we all need to realize is we NEEED TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN if there is ever going to be a better future.

THINGS NEED TO CHANGE.

posted June 13, 2013 12:48 AM            

it is a sick sick cycle. the way things are done.

that is why i question it all, question people and their motives.it makes no sense to me. awareness needs to increase and self-seving people need to be be taken out. this world needs change in this way more than anything.

posted June 13, 2013 07:41 AM            

Who would buy Hershey's chocolate if they openly admitted to having child slaves (who are physically tortured) right in the US? Yet they ADMIT to having slaves in Africa!

Edit: Well this is more complicated than I realized...

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The blame for the slavery in cocoa production has been passed from one group to the next. Those who sell the children to the farmers claimed they did not see the slavery.[20] The Ivorian government accused foreigners of using and selling slaves[20] and blamed multinational chocolate companies for keeping cocoa prices low and farmers in poverty; it claimed the low prices forced some farmers to use slave labor.[1] The Ivorian prime minister, Pascal Affi N'Guessan, said the price would need to increase 10 times to ensure a good quality of life for the farmers and their families.[1] Farmers who bought slaves blamed the worldwide cost of cocoa.[20] Cocoa suppliers claimed they cannot manage what happens on the farms.[20] Chocolate companies stated that the suppliers needed to provide cocoa that was not produced by slaves.[20] Consumers did not know that their chocolate was produced using slave labor.[20]

In 2001, due to pressure applied by the US Congress and potential US and UK boycotts,[2] the chocolate manufacturers promised to start eliminating forced child labor.[18] In 2012, Ferrero and Mars promised that they will end cocoa slavery by 2020.[34][35][36]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_cocoa_production

But still, apparently Hershey's is one of the worst offenders (and their chocolate generally doesn't taste that good anyway )