Mauritanis anti-slavery campaign

Thirteen anti-slavery activists in Mauritania have been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for their alleged role in a riot in June. A tribunal found the members of the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) guilty on Thursday of counts including attacks against the government, armed assembly and membership of an unrecognised organisation. The activists were arrested in late June and early July after a protest against eviction by residents of a slum in the capital Nouakchott, many of whom are themselves former slaves. The Nouakchott slum was home to many so-called Haratin - a "slave caste" under a hereditary system of servitude whose members are forced to work without pay as cattle herders and domestic servants.

IRA Vice President Brahim Ramdane called the verdicts a "parody of justice" 

The defendants said they were not present at the June protests and that the trial was a politically motivated attempt by the government to discredit their organisation. The decision was condemned on Friday by international campaigners as a "devastating blow to the Mauritanian anti-slavery movement".

Sarah Mathewson, Africa Programme Manager at Anti-Slavery International, said that the activists were "clearly being targeted by the government for their work to expose and denounce slavery, still commonplace in the country".

Mauritania is a focus of activism by the modern anti-slavery movement over a practice believed to affect between 4 and 20 percent of the population.

Fleeing Mauritanian Slavery

Slavery is a matter of hereditary caste in traditional Saharan and Sahelian cultures. Because his mother was an unpaid domestic laborer, Ahmet Falla was preordained for the same fate. There's a family in Mauritania that considers him their property.

"If I'd stayed in Mauritania, I'd have had to work without pay for my whole life," Falla said in French. "I have no rights down there." That's why Falla is in Germany as an asylum applicant. "If I returned to Mauritania, the family that thinks of me as their property might kill me as a punishment for my having fled," Falla said. "I'd rather kill himself than go back."

Falla's prospects for being granted asylum in Germany are slim. Slavery was officially abolished in Mauritania in 1981, and holding slaves was criminalized in 2007. Officially, slavery no longer exists. The German government classifies some countries - Syria and Eritrea, for example - as particularly dangerous or repressive places to which asylum applicants cannot be sent back home. It doesn't classify Mauritania that way.

De facto slavery remains widespread in Mauritania. Mauritanian society was traditionally organized into clans - large extended families - with the clans divided into various castes. Occupations were hereditary: Islamic scholars, musicians, artisans and workers of various kinds, domestic and agricultural slaves - everyone inherited their roles and their social status. In theory, the system no longer exists, but in practice it's still very much alive and quite difficult to escape.

The problem has three elements. First, though there are laws against slavery, they're scarcely enforced. Second, many Mauritanians are illiterate or live in remote rural settings, and have no knowledge of their legal rights. Third, and perhaps most difficult to overcome: People who leave their clans to escape their hereditary status have few real options. They often move to one of Mauritania's towns, where they're shunned. No one gives them work or lends them money to start a business. They live in poverty on the margins of society.

In that light, it isn't hard to understand why Ahmet Falla doesn't want to go back to Mauritania. It's something of a miracle that he managed to leave the country in the first place. If necessary, he'll go to ground in Europe, and live a life without a residency permit, without the right to find a job, without insurance, on the margins. "Better that," he said, "than slavery."

http://www.dw.com/en/mauritanian-flees-slavery-in-africa-for-life-in-germany/a-18650499

The struggle against slavery continues

Police in Mauritania used tear gas to disperse protesters, after three anti-slavery activists were sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday. Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, the runner-up in 2014 presidential elections and the head of an anti-slavery group, was convicted along with one of his aides Bilal Ramdane, and Djiby Sow, a civic and cultural rights campaigner. The activists were charged with "belonging to an illegal organisation, leading an unauthorised rally, and violence against the police".

According to Amnesty International, the activists were arrested while trying to educate people about land rights in the west African country where slave descendents are often forced to give up a portion of their crops to the traditional masters. Gaetan Mootoo, Amnesty's West Africa researcher, denounced the convictions, saying: "The intensifying crackdown on anti-slavery activists in Mauritania has no legal justification and is symptomatic of the government's lack of respect for human rights."

The country was the last in the world to abolish slavery, in 1981, and since 2007 its practice has been officially designated a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But campaigners say the government has failed in the past to acknowledge the extent of the trade. Forced labour is a particularly sensitive issue in Mauritania, where anti-slavery charities are very active.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/01/mauritania-jails-anti-slavery-activists-201511521540169595.html

Slavery In Mauritania

Mauritania has the highest proportion of people in slavery in the world. According to one NGO in Mauritania, up to 20 percent of the Mauritanian population is enslaved.⁵ While not identical to the Global Slavery Index estimated of prevalence, these two figures, in the absence of more precise measurement, point to a growing consensus of high levels of enslavement in Mauritania.

Slavery in Mauritania primarily takes the form of chattel slavery, meaning that adults and children in slavery are the full property of their masters who exercise total ownership over them and their descendants. Slave status has been passed down through the generations from people originally captured during historical raids by the slave-owning groups.⁶

People in slavery may be bought and sold, rented out and given away as gifts. Slavery is prevalent in both rural and urban areas. It is reported that women are disproportionately affected by slavery; for example, they usually work within the domestic sphere, and a high level of control is exercised over their movements and social interactions. They are subject to sexual assault by their masters. Women’s roles include childcare and domestic chores, but they may also herd animals and farm, as men in slavery do.⁷

Beyond the context of private homes, it is reported that some boys, who have been sent to attend Koranic schools to become talibes (students), have been forced into begging. Although the scale of this problem is not known, it is thought to be quite significant; affecting local boys as well as boys trafficked into Mauritania from the surrounding regions.⁸

It is also reported that women have been subjected to forced marriage and sexual exploitation, both within Mauritania but also in the Middle East.⁹ Slaves are not permitted to have any possessions, as they are considered to be possessions themselves. As such they are denied inheritance rights and ownership of land and other resources. When an enslaved person marries, the dowry is taken by the ‘master’ and if they die their property can be claimed by the ‘master’.¹⁰

^{read more here}

Migrant Labour, Slavery and Servitude

Migration, a livelihood strategy

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of international migrants was estimated at 214 million in 2010 - more then the whole population of Brazil – and it is rising constantly. People migrate within their country (especially from rural to urban areas) or between countries, often without “legal permission” and putting their lives at risk. Migration is a complex phenomenon as it is the result of many different factors, such as wars, conflicts, natural disasters, new opportunities, family reunifications, etc. However the main reason for the rise in contemporary migration is economic. Women and men migrate mostly to escape hunger and poverty. In particular, the destruction of rural communities and peasant agriculture (including deforestation, soil exhaustion and unfair land distribution) is one of the main “push factors” for migrating. National and international policies and trade agreements endorsed by the current neoliberal capitalist system are behind this process.

A migrant labour-force

With the introduction of the globalised movement of capital in the neoliberal system transnational companies increasingly began to disconnect production from a fixed geography – using the global economy to source materials, production no longer became tied to a single place. Companies quickly realized that a limiting factor on profit was labour costs, and so began to organize the movement of their industries to countries or regions where labour costs were low, organizing tax havens for their businesses in exchange for providing low paid manufacturing jobs in the host country.

For agriculture the situation was more complex as existing soils, trees, vines, processing infrastructure and prevalent weather conditions meant that simple relocation to zones with cheaper labour costs was not as straightforward. As farmers in Europe and the U.S. were pushed to increase production in order to compensate for lower and lower prices being paid by retailers, they began to employ migrant labourers in increasing numbers. Decreasing availability of local seasonal workers and a huge increase in the availability of undocumented migrant workers quickly led labour intensive agricultural enterprises to increase their use of migrant labour, resulting in the current situation where an estimated between one and three million migrant farm workers (predominantly Mexican and undocumented workers with no legal status) work on farms in the United States alone. In some cases the agricultural enterprises have begun to move overseas in order to lower their production costs.

 Large organic and conventional farms being established in Northern Morocco in order to supply the E.U. market and taking advantage of more “competitive” labour costs there  are one such example. This transferral of production is often accompanied and facilitated by aggressively negotiated bi-lateral trade agreements. The same process can be seen at work as companies involved in landgrabbing internationally use land (often the best agricultural land) and local labour to produce food destined only for the export market.

States are complicit in this situation and worldwide agricultural and migration policies are progressively more correlated. Governments with large numbers of
incoming migrants have repeatedly failed to regulate for them, refusing to introduce rights for seasonal workers and allowing the situation to worsen. Especially in the E.U. and U.S., enormous sums of money and effort are expended in keeping people beyond increasingly militarized borders, while special seasonal permits and migration policies prevent migrant workers from settling in the destination country or gaining any rights. As migrant workers are pushed to enter the destination country illegally, they can be employed under the constant threat of deportation and face criminalisation and blackmail. For neoliberal enterprise it is an ideal situation: a cheap labour force throughout the year that can be discarded at any time or even deported back to their country of origin when they are no longer required.

Modern slavery

Working conditions can eventually reach a level of exploitation that they can be considered a modern form of “slavery”. Even if it is difficult to believe, twenty-seven million people are considered to be in slavery today. Almost all slavery practices, including trafficking in people and bonded labour, contain some element of forced labour. This means that there are more people in slavery today than at any other time in human history. Slavery has existed for thousands of years, but changes in the world’s economy and societies over the past fifty years have enabled a resurgence of slavery. “Modern slaves” are forced to work for little or no pay, under the threat of violence to themselves or their families, deportation or criminalization. Most of them are exploited in agriculture, fisheries, mining and construction, and - especially women and children - in prostitution. Generally illegal migration presents traffickers with opportunities to oblige or defraud undocumented migrants into involuntary servitude and exploitation, as their lack of legal status creates their invisibility.
Undocumented people – such as many farm workers - live the contradiction of being criminalized and chased on the one hand, and needed, desired and often exploited on the other.  
from here

Slaves by any other name

"Slavery is alive and well in Mauritania" - Messaoud ould Boulkheir, President of Mauritania's Parliament, May 2013.

Are there still slaves in Mauritania? Legally, no. Are large numbers of ex-slaves and their descendants still trapped in exploitative systems? Yes.

Mauritania, like its Sahelian neighbours Senegal and Mali, has a long history of slavery. In the Sahara 'household slavery' was seen as an integral cultural element. In this Muslim society, slave marriage and reproduction was widely encouraged; slave children belonged to masters and ensured future generations of slaves. Additionally, there was a formally recognised category of 'freed slaves': haratin.

In Mauritania, all former slaves and their descendants are haratin. When manumission (freeing a slave) followed Islamic law, the resulting relationship (wala) created an ongoing interdependence: former masters owed material, moral and legal assistance, while haratin shared in familial social obligations and religious payments.

Real change came in the wake of the Sahelian drought (1968-74) that drove thousands from the desert into urban centres like Nouadhibou, the Atlantic port, and Nouakchott, the new capital. Most were haratin or slaves whose masters could no longer support them. In the late 1970s, the political group El Hor ('The Freeman') argued for improved conditions for these groups. Its success in publicising their plight internationally forced the government to formally abolish slavery in 1980.

But religiously-sanctioned relationships such as slavery and wala were not jettisoned so easily, especially as few amongst slaves, haratin and masters found sufficient material compensation in the new reforms to risk leaving/rejecting the traditional security of slavery. The institution thus continued.

Today, haratin are the poorest cultivators, fishermen, and herders; they are the urban street people, domestics, semi-employed manual labourers, and poorly-salaried workers (for example, the recently-striking Nouadhibou dock-workers). However, while still a minority, haratin also account for some prominent middle-class professionals (teachers, nurses, journalists, lawyers, architects, professors) and wealthy businessmen.

What constitutes slavery and what determines who is 'slave' in post-abolitionist Mauritania are not straightforward. What the government says about eradicating the 'vestiges of slavery' and what its agents (legal, police and military) do, seldom overlap. It is local experience - rural and urban, private and public - not statutes and laws that defines 'Mauritanian slavery' today.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201307181120.html?viewall=1

The slave wars

In Mali Tuareg rebels are capitalising on fighting in Mali to reacquire former captives whom they regard as their property from birth.


Anti-slavery groups say the conflict and ensuing political chaos in Mali has worsened the situation facing the 250,000 people who live in conditions of slavery in the west African state. The MNLA leadership and parts of the Ansar Dine Islamist group, which fought for control of the north last year, come from Tuareg noble families, some of whom are responsible for continuing the practice of slavery in Mali. The Malian anti-slavery organisation Temedt has reported cases of slave masters profiting from the chaos of the past year to recapture former slaves, including at least 18 children seized from one village last September.
Although slavery is a crime against humanity in Mali's constitution, it remains deeply ingrained in the culture. For centuries, descent-based slavery – where slavery is passed down through the bloodline – has resulted in "black Tamasheq" (the Tuareg's language) families in Mali's north being used as slaves by nomadic Tuareg communities. Generations of children have been considered the property of the Tuaregs from birth. Despite the constitution, slavery is still not illegal in Mali, making it difficult for anti-slavery groups to launch criminal prosecutions.

In 2008, Raichatou escaped slavery in the northern desert town of Menaka, heading for the relative safety of Gao. Raichatou became a slave at the age of seven when her mother, also a slave, died. "My father could only watch on helplessly as my mother's master came to claim me and my brothers," she says. She worked as a servant for the family without pay for nearly 20 years, and was forced into a marriage with another slave whom she didn't know.My master only wanted me to have children so that he would have more slaves in the future. My opinion did not count. I had to live with a man I had not chosen for three years. They told me that the only way I would get to heaven was to obey my master. My instinct for liberty was telling me to grab every opportunity to be free, but my slave mentality was telling me the opposite" she says.

Slavery Carries On

In 1981, Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery. It didn't make slavery a crime until 2007. Only one slave owner has been successfully prosecuted. Mauritania's government has done little to combat slavery and in interviews with CNN denied that the practice exists. "All people are free in Mauritania and this phenomenon (of slavery) no longer exists," one official said. Yet an estimated 10% to 20% of the population still lives in slavery - in “real slavery”. Slave masters in Mauritania exercise full ownership over their slaves. They can send them away at will, and it’s common for a master to give away a young slave as a wedding present. Local Islamic imams, historically have spoken in favor of slavery. Activists say the practice continues in some mosques, particularly in rural areas. "They make people believe that going to paradise depends on their submission,"

Slavery in Mauritania is not entirely based on race, but lighter-skinned people historically have owned people with darker skin, and racism in the country is rampant. Mauritanians live by a rigid caste system, with the slave class at the bottom.

White Moors are lighter-skinned Berber people who speak Arabic and have traditionally owned slaves. Most men wear light blue shirts called boubous, which have ornate designs on the chest. White Moors are the power class in Mauritania and control more wealth than any other group. Some, however, live in poverty. It's not uncommon to find a White Moor living in a tent only slightly larger than that of his or her slaves. Black Moors are darker-skinned people who historically have been enslaved by the White Moors. Originally from sub-Saharan Africa, the Black Moors have taken on many aspects of the Arab culture of their masters. They speak Hassaniya, an Arabic dialect. Slaves of noble families attain a certain level of status by association.

The Haratine - word literally means "freed slaves," but it can be used to describe people who are in slavery or who belong to the former slave class of Black Moors. Many Haratine people exist somewhere on the spectrum between slavery and freedom and are the target of class- and race-based discrimination.

Mauritania‘s other darker-skinned people come from several ethnic groups, including the Pulaar, Soninke and Wolof. These groups also are found in Senegal, which shares Mauritania‘s southern border. They look similar to Black Moors, but never were enslaved and are quite different in terms of culture and language.

Most slave families in Mauritania consist of dark-skinned people whose ancestors were captured by lighter-skinned Arab Berbers centuries ago. Slaves typically are not bought and sold — only given as gifts, and bound for life. Their offspring automatically become slaves, too.

Forty-four percent of Mauritanians live on less than $2 per day. Slave owners and their slaves are often extremely poor, uneducated and illiterate. This makes seeking a life outside slavery extremely difficult or impossible. On the other hand, poverty has also led to some slave masters setting their slaves free, because they can no longer afford to keep them.

“On this land, everybody is exploited,” said one slave

“We don’t pay them,” a slave-owner said “They are part of the land.”

Food shortages are dire and are a reason some Mauritanian slaves actually prefer to stay in the homes of their masters: If they leave, it’s difficult to survive.

“Chains are for the slave who has just become a slave..." Boubacar, an ex-slave said. “But the multigeneration slave, the slave descending from many generations, he is a slave even in his own head. And he is totally submissive. He is ready to sacrifice himself, even, for his master. And, unfortunately, it’s this type of slavery that we have today” — the slavery that American plantation owners dreamed of.

For a slaves to be free, they first must break the shackles in their minds. That applies not just for chattel slaves but also to wage-slaves


http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slaverys.last.stronghold/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Shadow over Africa

"Africa is the embodiment of capitalist exploitation. For almost four centuries it has been systematically plundered for its raw materials and human labour...There’s an Ibo saying “when two Brothers fight, Strangers always reap the harvest”. That encapsulates the aftermath of European imperialism in Africa...Western capitalists and speculators, remain as firmly entrenched in Africa today as they were during Cecil Rhodes’s era "

Full article can be read here in the latest issue of the Socialist Standard.

Slavery and Wage Slavery

In August 2007 Mauritania’s National Assembly unanimously adopted a law criminalizing slavery (including debt bondage and forced marriage). The law says slaveholders could be given 10-year prison sentences and fines ranging from US$2,000 to $4,000. Anyone facilitating slavery can be imprisoned for two years. The law also provides for financial compensation to former victims. Nearly a fifth of Mauritania’s 3.1 million people were slaves as of 2009. No one has been prosecuted for keeping slaves. Authorities generally classify such cases simply as disputes between an employer and his or her employees. The deputy head of SOS Esclaves in Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Khalifa explained “The authorities themselves keep slaves,”

“My masters told me: ‘The slave depends on his owner and in order to go to paradise he must obey his owner. Otherwise he will go to hell’,” said Rabah who, with the help of the Mauritanian anti-slavery group Initiative pour la résurgence du mouvement abolitioniste, was liberated. “I knew no one but my masters. I belonged to them and that seemed normal to me. When I was young my owners beat me; when I got older they threatened to take me to the police if I disobeyed them.”

Many say the question of land is at the heart of Mauritania’s slavery problem. “The cultivatable lands are monopolised by the former masters. And yet it’s us who farm them,” said Yeslim Ould Warmit, a Haratine farmer in the village of Leuceïba. “Indeed for them: slaves we were born, slaves we will always be,” added Abdallahi Ould Mohamed Salem, another freed sleeve. “That will not change as long as the local administration backs the former masters.”
“This land question is crucial,” said Mamadou Sarr, executive secretary of the forum of national human rights’ organisations in Mauritania. “Because today, no one is playing the game. Not the mayors, not the prefects, not even the governors. They still obey the big landowners.”

Banning slavery have failed to improve living conditions for victims of slavery.

“I was born into a family of slaves in 1959. I was sold to a tribe in northern Mauritania where I worked as a full-time slave. I was the first one to wake up and the last to sleep. My main daily work was to look after my masters’ cattle." Mbareck Ould Mahmoude told IRIN "My masters told me that I was free in 1979. They starting paying me US$19 monthly and $11 each to my mother and sisters to work as domestic workers. My mother and sisters are still working now for the same people as during the times of open slavery. They are now paid $27 a month, but that is not enough to live on. Now, people do not call me a slave anymore because of the law. But in reality, I am still a slave and I will stay one as long as I am poor and uneducated like the rest of my family. I feel that I am not a normal human being. I have no voice, no importance in my community and this is likely to last unless I get better pay and basic education. New slavery is worse than that of the old days. Today, you get a negligible amount for heavy work. You have to support yourself and your family unlike the old days of slavery, when you were called a slave but at least your food and housing were paid for by your masters.”

horror tours

The historic slave port ,Badagry, Nigeria , is to be transformed through the bizarre combination of a $3.4bn (£2.4bn)slave history theme park and a museum dedicated to double Grammy-winning pop-soul group the Jackson Five. The idea is that the band will help attract African-American tourists keen to trace their roots back to Nigeria.

The African-American history trail is worth billions of dollars, the developers say. Ghana and Senegal have successfully turned slave ports into tourist attractions. The developers say the Badagry Historical Resort will be marketed to African-American tourists as a mixture of luxury tourist attractions and historical education.
Visitors will be able to see the route their ancestors walked, shackled together as they were whipped toward the "point of no return". They can then retire to their five-star hotel to drink cocktails by the pool.

But critics have dismissed the project as a cynical money-making scheme, inappropriate for the subject of such seriousness as the transatlantic slave trade.

"It's like dancing on the graves of dead people and telling them you're honouring them" C Don Adinuba Writer

Slavery and wage-slavery

In Mauritania, slavery was banned years ago in 1981 - but it persisted and now there has been passed a new law meaning anyone that keeps slaves can be thrown into jail for up to 10 years.The law foresees fines as well as jail terms for slave masters and reparations for the victims. Mauritania's change in mindset seems to have found its momentum after an army coup in 2005. The military junta leader, Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, declared slavery a problem last year, a marked shift from the denials of the man he ousted.

"It's a historic moment. One of the reasons slavery has flourished is because of impunity, but now it's been criminalised in clear and comprehensive terms," Boubacar Ould Messaoud, the head of SOS Slavery in Mauritania, said

Mauritania's history of slavery goes back more than 800 years when Arab raiders surged across the Sahara to subjugate black Africans. Mauritanian slaves are born into an established slave class, and this binds them to their master's household. They can be given as gifts, and bought or sold. They must marry who their masters say and are usually told they can only go to heaven on their master's word.

As one small boy put it when talking to the campaign group Anti-Slavery International: "I grew up in the master's family, there was one son, we were almost the same age... He went to Koranic school and I was a shepherd, herding animals. I also had to fetch water. I did the work of domestics 24 hours a day. As a slave, we are the first to wake up, we are the last to go to bed."

Little will change though for that boy . From chattel slavery to wage-slavery is not really such a big change, though . He will labour in the interests of others and toil for the benefit of the master class .

"Slaves are often thought of as people in chains. But here they are born into submission. They are chained in their heads..." Messaoud of SOS Slavery went on to say .
Indeed , that is a condition that many live under - perhaps not literally actual slaves but still , nevertheless , in bondage to the yoke of capitalism and the necessity of working for a wage or a salary for mere simple survival and yet not realising their enslaved position in class divided capitalist society.
.

Mauritanian slavery

A new bill in Mauritania making slavery punishable by up to 10 years in prison is inadequate, says Anti-Slavery International , a lobbying group. The proposed law was too weak.

Slavery has existed for centuries in Mauritania. A presidential decree abolished it in 1981, but no criminal laws were passed to enforce the ban.

"Unfortunately the proposed bill only defines an element of the practice in Mauritania," spokeswoman Romana Kacchioli told the BBC Network Africa programme .

It does not cover contemporary aspects of slavery, such as forced marriage, indentured labour or debt bondage .

And we of Socialist Banner would add , nor cover wage slavery ,either

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