The sweet bitter truth on cocoa

Africa supplies 76 percent of world’s cocoa. West Africa alone cumulatively supplies two thirds of the global cocoa, as Ivory Coast leads the pack with 1.65 million tonnes. This is followed by Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo which altogether produce 1.55 million tonnes. Cocoa is also grown in Sierra Leone, Uganda, Tanzania, Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and Sao Tome & Principe. while about 76 per cent of total cocoa produced is from Africa, less than five per cent of the wealth in the value chain is retained in the continent.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says the crop’s by-products are consumed mainly in industrialised countries, with major buyers being the chocolate processing and confectionary industry. Exporters of raw cocoa get approximately $10 billion a year, but the total annual value of chocolates, all made from cocoa, is over $100 billion, according to Olusegun Aganga, Nigeria’s immediate past minister for industry, trade and investment. Aganga explained at the Nigerian Cocoa Value Addition Summit in 2014 that the total value of all finished goods made from cocoa is estimated to be as high as $200 billion a year. Africa is missing in this big market. Many African cocoa producers have failed to emulate Brazil and Malaysia, where the local processing industry absorbs most of the production.

Forbes conducted a search for the ten world’s biggest chocolate consumers. No African country is on the list. Countries on the list include Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Norway. Others are Sweden Australia, the Netherlands, the United States and France. It is instructive that the production plants of major candy and chocolate makers, which depend on cocoa from Africa for production, are all outside Africa. Amano Artisan, Askinosie, Biommer, Castronovo, Equal Exchange, Guittard, Mars, Mast Brothers, among many others are in the United States. Others such as Domori, Bonnat, Barry Callebaut, Hachez, Haigh’s, Royce, Thorntons, among hundreds of others, are scattered around Europe, Australia and Asia.

The sweet bitter truth

Halloween is nearing, a time for trick or treat. Many Western children will be given chocolate candy for the treat. Chocolate’s billion-dollar industry starts with workers like Abdul, a 10 years old, a three-year veteran of the job. He has never tasted chocolate. Children such as Abdul don’t know anything about protocols or certification, prohibiting his exploitation. All they know is work.

At present, nearly 75 percent of the world’s cocoa is supplied by the West African countries of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where nearly two million children work on cocoa farms.  40% children working in cocoa fields of Ivory Coast are not enrolled in schools and that only 5% of Ivorian children are paid for their work. According to UNICEF, hundreds of thousands of these children are engaged in the worst forms of child labor. UNICEF further estimates nearly 35,000* Ivorian children working on cocoa farms as victims of trafficking.

Many of the child-'slaves’ are physically and sexually exploited. Handling of chemicals and prolonged exposure to pesticides make these children prone to incorrigible respiratory and dermatological diseases. Negligent and unassisted working with heavy farm equipments and sharp tools leave many children crippled for life. 

Child Slavery In The Ivory Coast

The call for action below draws our attention once again to the lengths that businesses in capitalism will go in order to maximise their markets and maximise their profits. Children in one part of the world subjected to slave conditions so that children in 'richer' parts of the world can enjoy chocolate in fun shapes. 
Yes, abolish slavery once and for all - better still abolish the wages system which enslaves all workers. JS 

WARNER BROS.' CHAMBER OF SECRETS

In the cocoa fields of the Ivory Coast, child slavery is ‘normal.’ It’s routine. It’s accepted.¹ Children as young as 7 are sold – deprived of their childhood, ripped from their families, and subjected to routine abuse – to work long, backbreaking days picking cocoa.² And it all stems from our love of chocolate.
While many chocolate brands have made public commitments to find the best solution, Warner Bros. is lagging behind:

1. An independent investigation into their supplier Behr's Chocolates led to a failing score of 1 out of 48 possible measures to ensure their operations are slavery-free;³
2. Warner Bros. dismissed the findings of the investigation, simply stating that they were 'satisfied’ that fair labour practices were being used in the production of their chocolates;
3. Given the conflicting information, outraged consumers asked Warner Bros. what steps were taken to ensure there was no slavery in Harry Potter Chocolates. Warner Bros. refused to respond. 

As we head into one of the busiest times of the year for Warner Bros. theme parks. Children excited to experience the world of Harry Potter will be asking their parents to buy these chocolates. That's why taking a stand right now will make a big impact.
Ask Warner Bros. what steps they’re taking to ensure Harry Potter chocolates are slavery-free.

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¹ Source 1
² Source 2
³ Source 3 

 

 

Hershey, one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the U.S., is lagging behind other companies in taking steps to ensure decent working conditions in its supply chain. In the United States, Hershey conjures up innocent childhood pleasures and enjoyable snacks. However, halfway across the globe, there is a dark side to Hershey. In West Africa, where Hershey sources much of its cocoa, the scene is one of child labor, trafficking, and forced labor. Hershey, which claims 42.5 percent of the U.S. chocolate market, has been slow to initiate adequate measures against abuses. The Hershey report notes that "modern slavery exists in diverse areas, including manufacturing, harvesting of raw materials, marketing commercial sexual activity (often aimed at the business traveler) and violent acts against workers."

Hershey's continued refusal to identify cocoa suppliers and "lack of transparency" makes it impossible for outside observers to verify the conditions on the farms. Hershey is also accused of "greenwashing" the problem, as opposed to instituting real reforms. Various charitable donations by the company display social responsibility, but there are no policies in place to combat the systemic issue of human rights within its own supply. Hershey does not have any third-party verification. Unlike its competitors, Hershey has not embraced the strongest system of certification, the Fair Trade label. Only one Hershey chocolate bar has the certification, leaving all the other popular products unaccountable.

"When you look at the amount of money in the cocoa industry and the enormous profits of companies like Hershey, the money dedicated to this issue is clearly inadequate," said Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, fair trade campaign director for Global Exchange.

cocoa cop-out

Socialist Banner have previously reported here on the child exploitaion in the cocoa producing regions and another news item reveal little has changed .

Despite the international outcry in 2000 over child exploitation on West African cocoa farms, and efforts by governments since then to regulate the industry, very little has changed for an estimated 284,000 child labourers, according to campaign groups. Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire produce about three-quarters of the world's cocoa and according to the US State Department, they employ 200,000 children. Up to 12,000 of these children have been illegally trafficked across African borders to work on Ivorian cocoa farms, according to the NGO Stop the Traffik. Many of these children are forced to work in dangerous conditions, on slave-labour wages or for nothing in order to put chocolate into the mouths of consumers .

In 2001 nine West African governments came to a voluntary agreement with the US government known as the Harkin-Engel protocol (named after the two US senators who passed it), which aimed to decrease the number of children working on farms, improve working conditions, and certify that half of the cocoa produced in West Africa would be free of exploitative child labour by 2005. But according a spokesperson for industry association International Cocoa Initiative , delays - due to conflict in the case of Côte d'Ivoire, and other burdens on resources elsewhere - meant the deadline was postponed to 2008.

"Now the industry needs to put its money where its mouth is, to get West African children off farms and back into school where they belong," said Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, another NGO.

But Eileen Maybin, spokesperson for the Fairtrade Foundation :

"Cocoa certification is a 'band-aid' policy - it is attempting to address the problem of child labour without addressing the underlying cause, which is low cocoa prices...Unless chocolate manufacturers are willing to pay more for their cocoa, these poor conditions on farms will persist."

The Harkin-Engel initiative is funded by governments and cocoa manufacturers, but critics say it has not provided enough money to address the root causes of the problem: that poverty drives farmers to exploit children.

It is the capitalist market that decides how humanitarian the degree of exploitation will be .

Cocoa wars

First came "blood diamonds" from Sierra Leone.

Then came "blood timber" from Liberia.

Now another West African conflict is being funded by yet another commodity beloved in the West: " blood chocolate." from Ivory Coast

Government and rebel leaders of the world's leading cocoa exporter, Ivory Coast, both siphoned off millions of dollars from the cocoa industry to finance the 2002-03 civil war that divided the once-stable and prosperous country in two, according to a recent report from Global Witness, a London-based group that focuses on resource-fueled corruption. The government received more than $58 million from institutions and cocoa revenues, while the rebel New Forces pocketed about $30 million since 2004 in taxes and revenues, claims the report titled "Hot Chocolate: How Cocoa fuelled the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire." Global Witness not only contends the cocoa trade drove the war economy but that the industry still serves the interests of both the government and the rebels who have reaped political and economic benefits with impunity.

Ivory Coast is the world's leading producer of the commodity, responsible for about 40 percent of global exports, which earned more than $1 billion in 2006.

Child Slavery and the Chocolate Factory

The BBC is reporting that child labour , in fact , near enough actual slavery , remains an unresolved problem in the Ivory Coast , the world's biggest cocoa producer.

A 2002 report by the industry body, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, put the number of children working in dangerous conditions in cocoa in West Africa at 284,000 in 2002, 200,000 of them in Ivory Coast. Many children on cocoa farms don't get to school, some exchange their childhood for work, a roof over their head and a meal a day. Others have been sent by their parents into virtual slavery, suffering beatings and abuse.
Progress in eradicating child labour has been slow.

Naturally not very particularly good news for the chocolate manufacturers in the more developed countries . There can be no worse PR for a chocolate company than news that children in West Africa - the source for the bulk of the world's cocoa - are being forced to pick beans used to make chocolate for the children in the West.

A voluntary industry initiative, called the Harkin-Engel protocol, in 2001. Its initial aim was to have a system in place to monitor labour conditions on cocoa farms by July 2005. That deadline shifted has now towards a 2008 deadline to monitor labour conditions in 50% of farms in Ghana, the world's number two producer, and neighbouring in Ivory Coast.

Mme. Amouan Acquah, the government official responsible for child labour issues in Ivory Coast makes the excuse that "We are in a state of war. We cannot make such guarantees."

Yet with or without war, Ivory Coast's cocoa has always made it to the world market . Critics say that if the cocoa can get to market even in times of conflict, then it should also be possible to monitor labour conditions on the farm.

Mme Acquah points out "The issue at the heart of this [child labour] is poverty."

In the words of cocoa farmer Eugene Djedje "No one is obliged to send a child to school. If you don't have money you don't go. "

Some major companies that knowingly use chocolate produced by slave labor:-

Hershey’s
M&M/Mars
Nestlé
Ben & Jerry’s
Kraft
Toblerone
Hauser Chocolates