emmett
02-15-2009, 10:46 AM
for Valentines Day, or purchase chocolate at any other time of year, you have directly provided financial support for child slavery.
Harsh statement I agree but unfortunately very true. Much of the world's chocolate comes from the west coast of Africa. It is presumed that as many as 300,000 children endure slavelike conditions. Many are forced to work as young as age six, applying pesticides and using machetes.
Furthermore much of the profits from production of cacao seeds, are used to fuel fighting between factions, buy firearms and end up in the pockets of some pretty shady folks. Many children are poisened each year and many die from the pesticides used to grow the pods by which chocolate are made from. It's huge business in The Ivory Coast and other West Africa countries where over a billion dollars a year is produced from these resources. Almost all is done by children.
I was shocked to learn this myself. In Mali, children of poor people are stolen or sometimes even sold by the parents themselves to the slave trade, the average price is about 30 US dollars, alot of money there, and then shipped to the plantations where they are forced to labor. It's sickening!
There have been well co-ordinated efforts by major chocolate purchasers like Hersheys, Mars and Nestles to attempt methods to combat this problem but they continue to buy the products knowingly produced in these regions. Basically, they don't practice what they preach. The dollar prevails. You can see all kinds of articles on this subject by typing chocolate, children and africa into a search engine.
What do you guys think about this?
Harsh statement I agree but unfortunately very true. Much of the world's chocolate comes from the west coast of Africa. It is presumed that as many as 300,000 children endure slavelike conditions. Many are forced to work as young as age six, applying pesticides and using machetes.
Furthermore much of the profits from production of cacao seeds, are used to fuel fighting between factions, buy firearms and end up in the pockets of some pretty shady folks. Many children are poisened each year and many die from the pesticides used to grow the pods by which chocolate are made from. It's huge business in The Ivory Coast and other West Africa countries where over a billion dollars a year is produced from these resources. Almost all is done by children.
I was shocked to learn this myself. In Mali, children of poor people are stolen or sometimes even sold by the parents themselves to the slave trade, the average price is about 30 US dollars, alot of money there, and then shipped to the plantations where they are forced to labor. It's sickening!
There have been well co-ordinated efforts by major chocolate purchasers like Hersheys, Mars and Nestles to attempt methods to combat this problem but they continue to buy the products knowingly produced in these regions. Basically, they don't practice what they preach. The dollar prevails. You can see all kinds of articles on this subject by typing chocolate, children and africa into a search engine.
What do you guys think about this?