When I was first presented with the horrible truth that one
of my favorite treats was brought to me courtesy of child slave labor I
considered throwing out my considerable stash and giving it up cold turkey. My impulse, though admirable, was in no way
sustainable as I am a full fledged chocolate addict. After this initial chock the danger for me when confronted with a horrible
truth like child slavery in the cocoa fields of West Africa is moving on. Being horrified, sickened even, wanting to
help, knowing the problem is too big and moving on. Blinking and reading the next tweet, skimming
the next story, watching the next episode. I do it all the time. I move on.
After all it is so far away and I really can’t be held responsible
for knowing not only what is in everything I eat, but also where it is made, by
whom and under what conditions. That is
simply too much to ask of this busy American consumer. It’s not as if I am writing checks to Slaveholders
R Us and liking their status on Facebook.
Or am I?
Before I could blink my way past this atrocity and talk
myself out of some sense of responsibility my love of American history reared
its tricorne covered head. I thought of
the cotton wearing northerners of nineteenth
century America blithely allowing the institution of slavery to flourish without
raising a finger or a voice to stop it.
Wearing the fruits of the labor of hundreds of thousands of people held,
under law, as property. It is sickening,
maddening and almost inconceivable. Yet as
I pop a bite size Snickers in my mouth am I not doing the same thing? I don’t believe in slavery, but it exists
anyway. I don’t support it yet without
me and my fellow chocolate lovers would it still exist in this market? Just as the suffering of people they could not
see, whose cries they never heard was ignored by Americans of the north and
west for over a century ago am I ignoring the suffering of people I do not
know, will never meet and whose lives I cannot imagine simply because I can
shut my eyes, stop up my ears and close my mouth pretending not to know?
So then even my deep and abiding love of all things
chocolate would not permit me to remain blind to the truth that the money I
spent feeding my habit was sustaining a harmful, oppressive and evil reality. I then shifted my thought process somewhat,
but my intent/interest remained inherently shallow and basically selfish. I wanted to be able to eat my chocolate without
feeling guilty and I began to research the cocoa industry with that small goal
in mind.
What I have discovered has led to me to a desire to not
simply not support slavery but to find a way to help be part of a movement that
would eliminate its existence in this world in my lifetime. It has also led me to many additional
questions about the cocoa industry, fair-trade, international markets, child trafficking
and so much more.
This blog entry is sort of the narrow focus. I’ll start by defining some terms and sharing
general facts that I think give context then a brief history of the international
awareness of this issue and finally the short answer on what chocolate has
cocoa from the places involved in child slavery and forced labor.
Facts:
Cocoa is the main ingredient in chocolate.
70-75% of world’s cocoa supply is produced on small farms in
West Africa mostly in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
40% of the world’s cocoa is produced in the Ivory Coast.
820,000 children in Ivory Coast and almost 1,000,000 in
Ghana are working on cocoa related activities.
The US State Department estimates that over 100,000 children
in the Ivory Coast work under worst forms of child labor and that 10,000 are
victims of human trafficking or enslavement.
A 2007 Unicef report puts the number closer to 200,000. The conditions for
these children involve long hours, dangerous tools, exposure to pesticides and
traveling long distances in grueling heat as well as beatings and other forms
of severe punishment. Some children are stolen from their homes,
some families are tricked in to sending their children to work there and some plantation
owners pay tariffs to traffickers who round up children for them.
How the problem came
to international attention:
In 2001 a documentary and several related articles exposed
to the world the reality of child labor and slavery, trafficking and other horrible
conditions present on the cocoa farms of West Africa. As a result US lawmakers put pressure on
cocoa industry to reform. They created the
Harkin-Engel Protocol. Named after the two senators who took lead in its negation. It is an international agreement aimed at
ending the worst forms of child labor and forced labor in the production of
cocoa. It was signed in 2001, but its
actual impact on the atrocities it sought to eliminate is unclear. To avoid
legislation that would have forced that would have forced chocolate companies t
label their products “child labor free” the industry pushed back and eventually they
agreed to end child labor in the Ivory Coast by 2005. But lo and behold in 2005 they needed more
time and so the deadline was extend to 2008.
What happened in 2008 you ask – that’s right the deadline was again extended
to 2010. And in 2010? Well read on because the chocolate companies
are getting more creative in avoiding the actual problem.
Short Answer – what chocolate
is safe?
There is a legal principal that says remedial efforts cannot
be admitted as evidence of wrongdoing.
Meaning that when the landlord is being sued because someone fell
through the floorboards the fact that he subsequently replaced all the floorboards
cannot be used as evidence that they were bad in the first place. The idea is that we don’t want to discourage
landlords (or anyone) from fixing a problem out of fear that that will then
confirm their guilt. The short lesson on
legal principals is due to the following:
Over the past few years Nestle, Hershey and Mars have all issued
very eloquent and earnest statements saying all of their chocolate will be
basically fair-trade certified by 2020.
Great. So since we are not in a
court of law I feel completely comfortable taking this as meaning - yes right now our cocoa comes from fields
worked by stolen, captive children but we get that that’s bad and give us a
decade and we are pretty sure we can stop it.
Admirable. Glad you acknowledged the
problem, but why is it going to take ten years to make a change? Also, remember what has happened with
promising in the chocolate industry over the last ten years – a lot of not
much.
I guess this is not turning out to be the shortest of short
answers so here it is:
So what you want to look for is chocolate that is certified
Fair Trade. Just a warning - Fair Trade certified
stuff currently makes up only about .5% of the market.
The Fair Trade certification means
workers are paid fair wages free from abusive and exploitative labor practices,
work in healthy and safe conditions and use environmentally sustainable methods
Long story but there are two types
of Fair Trade Certification
Fair Trade USA and Fair Trade
International – the former’s standards are somewhat lower than the latter’s and
there has been some criticism about how easy it might be to get the Fair Trade USA
certification so I vote Fair Trade International for now at least
Go to Whole Foods – they seems to have the highest amount of
fair-trade chocolate in the area. Look for chocolate with the Fair-trade certification on the label.
You can also get Fair-trade chocolate online, but chocolate
being what it is I think melting could be a concern.
Cadbury
– Cadbury gifts direct
Divine
Chocolate – www.divinechocolateusa.com
Lutheran
World Relief – www.lwr.org
Ghirardelli has issued a statement (http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Trade-chocolate-fair-trade/forum/Fx29RC6LN8C9N1B/TxDETGP6RBDVYY/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B000KNFBJC)
essentially saying that almost all of their cocoa comes from Central and South
America where there have never been the same concerns about forced, slave and
child labor as in West Africa.
So that is a little bit about how to make sure your dollar
isn’t going to support child slave labor in this industry at least . . .next up
is some ideas on how we might go further in urging the major chocolate
companies to speed up their commitment to Fair trade and ending these
deplorable practices.
No comments:
Post a Comment