The US Supreme Court has rejected a bid by three of the
world’s biggest food producers to throw out a lawsuit holding them accountable
in a landmark child slavery case. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Alien
Tort Claims Act, Torture Victim Protection Act, US Constitution, and California
state law.
Nestlé, Archer-Daniels-Midland, and Cargill are being sued
for using unpaid children to harvest cocoa in Cote d’Ivoire. The Supreme Court
decision backs up a 2014 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that
refused to dismiss the lawsuit against them. The companies stand accused of
aiding and abetting human rights violations by purchasing cocoa from Cote
d’Ivoire in full knowledge of the country’s child slavery problem. Ivory Coast
produces 40% of the world's cocoa.
Three individuals filed a class action in 2005, alleging
they had been trafficked from Mali as children and forced to work harvesting
cocoa beans without pay. They say they worked for up to 14 hours a day and
suffered physical abuse including whipping. According to court documents, they
were kept in locked rooms when not working and were fed only scraps of food.
One plaintiff described guards slicing open the feet of child workers trying to
escape. The accusers claim the companies offered financial and technical
assistance to local farmers to guarantee cheap cocoa - and benefited
economically from violations of international labor conventions and law.
In 2010, Nestlé successfully stopped a bill in the US
Congress that would have made cocoa products carry labels guaranteeing no child
labor was used. A 2015 report by the Fair Labor Association, which includes
Nestlé as a member, found evidence of forced and child labor in Cote d’Ivoire
farms used by the company during a number of unannounced visits the previous
year. Nestle has long been criticized for its policies involving children,
going back to the 1970s with reports such as “The Baby Killer” and “Nestle
Kills Babies”, which said the company deliberately contributed to the
malnutrition and deaths of infants by discouraging breastfeeding in the name of
their brand of formula and dressed up sales reps as nurses. More recently,
Nestlé has been accused of unethically bottling California water during
droughts, destroying rainforests and orangutans in pursuit of palm oil, and
failing to keep lead out of noodles in India.
Several business groups in the US and Europe, including the
US Chamber of Commerce, came out against the lawsuit because ending child
slavery would be a threat to investment and “corporate human rights”. In their
Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court, they wrote: "Some judges might
genuinely desire that US companies stop doing business with cocoa farmers in
Côte d’Ivoire, perhaps hoping that such non-participation would benefit local
farmers and children. That foreign affairs decision, however, is not the judiciary’s
to make, and the ATS certainly is not a tool that private parties may wield to
dictate foreign policy."
Despite the court ruling, Nestlé, the world's largest food
company based on revenue, its stock went up on Tuesday by more than two
percent.
No comments:
Post a Comment