Chocolate
I love chocolate don’t you? But there's a horrible truth about chocolate, 70% of the worlds chocolate is made on the cocoa farms in West African, where children are forced to work. There are over 280,000 children as young as six years old, working on cacao plantations in West Africa. Not only are the children slaves but they are fed once a day if even that, sleep on mats as thin as paper, and are beaten constantly. They work 10-14 hour days with little to no pay. The lucky ones are payed 6 ½ cents an hour. Imagine if that was you. Put yourself in their shoes. They need help.
Your next question might be how are large companies getting away with this? On the Ivory Coast of Africa there is little government oversight. Large companies such as Hersheys hire a “contractor” to find them farms to harvest their chocolate. Large companies then are no longer liable because they do not own the farms where there is child labor, they only buy from them. Companies say they “didn’t know” about the child slavery on the farms, but most of the times they do. Large companies use these farms because they are cheap, why are they cheap? Child labor. Many of these children’s parents put them into child labor because they need the money. When a child works they don’t go to school meaning no education. If they don’t have an education they won’t be able to get a good job, when they don’t get a good job they are paid very little. When they are paid very little they sink farther into poverty. Their children therefore, in order to support their family must work, making the cycle continue. This spirals into generations of poverty. The farm owners are the same, they are doing it to make money to support their families, they don’t have a choice.
Now heres the good news, you can make a difference, we can make a difference. The United States consumes more than three billion pounds of chocolate each year. I challenge all of you stop buying chocolate from large companies like Hershey, Russell Stover, Dove, etc. Only buy chocolate that is fair trade, and not produced in Africa. Some brands that are fair trade are Equal Exchange, Newman’s Own, and Green and Black’s. If enough people join together, than chocolate companies will have to change. The only way to eradicate child labor in the chocolate industry is with the consumers, us. Now the fair trade chocolate might be more expensive but isn’t saving a few lives, getting children out of slavery, worth it? To pledge, sign this petition promising that you will only buy chocolate that is fair trade and not produced in Africa. Please get your friends to sign!