The Catholic Health Association has a spring campaign called “How Bad Can a Chocolate Bunny Be?” Let’s plagiarize and ask “How bad can a chocolate pumpkin be? Or a chocolate turkey? Or a chocolate Christmas tree?”
How bad? The main ingredient in chocolate is cocoa; and when one considers the harvesting of cocoa, one must also consider the harvesters. The U.S. Department of Labor reports millions of children are exploited by labor trafficking—working long, arduous hours for little or no pay.
Ivory Coast is the world’s leading producer of cocoa, the raw ingredient for chocolate, and is responsible for about 36 percent of global exports. The Ivorian cocoa trade is mired in the exploitation of children, war and corrupt profits for officials and western big chocolate business. It is estimated that a quarter of a million children work in hazardous conditions on Ivorian cocoa farms, in spite of a pledge by the world’s biggest chocolate companies more than seven years ago to abolish forced child labor from their supply chain. Ghana is also a major producer of cocoa and child labor is found there as well.
The U.S. Department of Labor published their 2022 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor. This 116-page report includes clear and specific detail and information. It identifies seven countries where cocoa is harvested by a child or forced labor. These countries are Brazil, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. To learn more, visit The Department of Labor.
One of Catholic Social Teaching’s principles, The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers, says “The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected – the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to organize and join unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.”
How can we help ensure the dignity of work and rights of workers? We can purchase fair trade products; in the upcoming holiday seasons, when cocoa and chocolate are staples, we can purchase online or locally fair trade products from one or more of the companies listed at the end of this reflection.
By purchasing fair trade products, we avoid chocolate produced through the exploitation of child labor. Fair trade is a system of certification that aims to ensure a set of standards are met in the production and supply of a product or ingredient. For farmers and workers, fair trade means workers’ rights, safer working conditions and fairer pay. For shoppers, it means high-quality, ethically produced products. Many companies offer fair trade cocoa and chocolate, along with many other products.
It is important that we consider our own consumerism – our desire for less-expensive, easily-acquired products; and to remember those who are exploited in order to grow, harvest, produce or sell such items. Pope Francis says: “Together with the social responsibility of businesses, there is also the social responsibility of consumers. Every person out to have the awareness that purchasing is always a moral – and not simply an economic – act.”
September 2, Washington, D.C.–This week, agriculture giants Nestlé and Cargill submitted briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in the cases Nestlé USA Inc. vs John Doe 1 and Cargill Inc. v. John Doe 1 arguing that they have immunity from responsibility for human rights abuses alleged by former child slave laborers on cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast of Africa. The plaintiffs sued under the federal Alien Tort Statute, which allows lawsuits for violations of international law.
Marco Simons, General Counsel of the human rights and climate justice organization EarthRights International issued the following statement in response:
“Nestlé and Cargill are trying to avoid legal responsibility for slave labor, claiming that because they are corporations, they simply cannot be held responsible. Even though slavery has been banned by international law since the 19th Century, they argue that only human beings–not corporations–can be sued for slavery. So even if they profit from child slavery, the children who escape this bondage cannot hold them accountable.
“The majority of the world’s cocoa supply is grown on the Ivory Coast, supplying vast amounts to companies like Nestlé and Cargill, leading manufacturers of chocolate. According to the plaintiffs, the companies were aware that plantations in their supply chains used child slave labor. Both companies hold enormous sway over the industry there and had plenty of leverage to stop the abuses. The companies had exclusive buying contracts with cocoa growers, regularly visited cacao plantations, and provided financial support, training, and farm supplies. The children who escaped this system sued them, arguing that the companies could have stopped the use of forced labor, but did not.
To read the full story by Kate Fried on Earthrights International: Click Here
Over half of the world’s cacao is harvested from the neighboring West African countries of Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana. A 2013 study led by Tulane professor William Bertrand estimated there were approximately two million children working in the chocolate industry, as young as five years old. One in five children was under the age of 12.
These figures were actually an increase from previous years, despite million-dollar reform commitments made by chocolate behemoths like Nestlé, Barry Callebaut, and Hershey. As Bertrand pointed out in an interview last fall with Mother Jones, “[Chocolate companies] talk a lot about the money spent on various activities related to child labor, but when we did the calculations, a fair proportion of that money was spent on sitting around and talking about it in London and Geneva.”
Reports from subsequent years demonstrate that child labor still persists. Nestlé, for example, had not been able to adequately reform their farmers’ practices by 2015, according to The Guardian; despite efforts to educate farmers on the company’s code of conduct prohibiting child labor, few had any knowledge of these measures of reform. Last year, the Financial Times published figures that showed that even more children were working on cacao farms than ever, emphasizing that chocolate companies’ efforts to address child labor are having little to no effect.
What Does Child Labor Look Like in the Chocolate Industry?
Child labor is not simply work that is conducted while someone is underage. While adults can also sustain injury and illness while working on a cacao farm, children are especially vulnerable to the dangers of the job. Farm workers are subject to pesticide exposure and injury from machetes without having access to protective gear or first aid. Their little bodies are also made to carry heavy loads.
Working on a cacao farm also means that children are not receiving an education; rather, they are working for little to no pay in an industry that offers no opportunity for a sustainable livelihood. The U.S. Department of Labor acknowledges that children end up on farms through human trafficking and kidnapping, and many are even sent away or sold by their families; the department has partnered with the governments of Ghana and Côte D’Ivoire as well as chocolate companies to end these exploitative practices.
The underlying issues that drive child labor are complex and cannot simply be solved by enacting ethical standards in the industry which are ineffective or ultimately unsustainable. Regional poverty, economic instability, and limited job opportunities are all driving factors behind using cheap or free child labor on cacao farms, which requires substantial transformations to occur at the national and global level.
To change corporate business practices on human trafficking is a long-term, demanding, and often daunting task. Let us celebrate the progress we have made.
A powerful alliance is formed when religious women and men, ecumenical and interfaith groups, and non-profit partners bring their faith to bear in the boardrooms of the largest corporations in the world. In twenty years, there are many accomplishments in addressing human trafficking through shareholder advocacy.
Four areas are noteworthy:
Major movement to stem human trafficking in the tourism industry;
Success in reducing human trafficking in the business supply chain;
An emerging call to the tech sector for vigilance concerning child exploitation online;
Companies adopting ethical recruitment policies and practices.
Many years and many partnerships have been devoted to addressing sex trafficking taking place in hotels and through airline travel. The result is that almost every major hotel chain has signed the “The Code” to prevent the sexual exploitation of children. Nearly one million employees have received training to prevent exploitation; identify and report suspected cases of human trafficking, and to support children’s rights. American and Delta airlines are among those who trained employees, publish notices about human trafficking in their onboard magazines or engaged in efforts to protect children. The next plane you board, ask the flight attendant if she/he has received training about human trafficking.
It is a challenge to keep a careful watch on the corporate supply chain from the sourcing of raw materials to the finished product. Shareholder resolutions and dialogues with numerous companies have created accountability. What does a win-win-win look like for vulnerable people, shareholders and companies?
An example is The Hershey Company. What is not to like about chocolate? Child labor! It was religious shareholders’ concern twelve years ago about child labor on the cocoa farms in the African countries of Ghana and the Ivory Coast that prompted dialogue with Hershey. These many years later we celebrate Hershey’s commitment to 100% certifiable and sustainable cocoa by 2020, which is free of child labor; the $500 million “Cocoa for Good Program” to nourish and empower children and preserve natural eco-systems in the Ivory Coast and Ghana; and the adoption of a Human Rights Policy that includes ethical recruitment.
Whether it concerns our food, clothes or household products, it is incumbent upon each of us to raise our consciousness about the human story in the supply chain. Judy Byron, OP, invites us to ask, “Could I have a human trafficking footprint?” When I put on a shirt in the morning or make a food choice for my evening meal, it is an opportunity to reflect on the story behind the label. A choice of “Fair Trade” can ensure that one is contributing to the dignity of workers.
Thirdly, the tech sector possesses enormous potential to solve global problems, and conversely, it can exacerbate age-old issues. Recently Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS) illuminated the potential dark side of the tech sector, child pornography. Through a shareholder resolution, CBIS called Verizon’s Corporate Board to issue a report on the potential sexual exploitation of children through the Company’s products and services. The result, 33.7 percent of Verizon’s shareholders voted in favor of the resolution! It is more than hopeful that there is an increasing awareness among shareholders that they have a voice in setting the direction of the company. If you have a retirement portfolio, a money manager or investments, be sure that you or your manager examine and vote the proxies of the companies in which you are invested.
Fourthly, a critical area of focus in shareholder advocacy in modern day slavery is to request the ethical recruitment of workers. The global economy creates a climate where labor brokers charge worker outrageous recruitment fees, take travel documents and do not provide contracts. It can take years for a migrant worker to pay back the debt incurred. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility is leading the No fees Campaign to support ethical recruitment. To date, 40 companies including Walmart, Ford, Hormel and Archer Daniels Midland have committed to “no worker paid fees.”
Please join the U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking in our continuing efforts to require business transparency. Ask your Congress member to support the Corporate Transparency Act of 2019.
