Educating About Fair Trade Chocolate vs Slavery Chocolate

Child Slavery in Your Valentine’s Day Chocolate?

Human Rights Advocates Pressure See’s Candies, Inc. to Take Steps to End Oppressive Labor Conditions, Buy Fair Trade Chocolate

San Francisco — The international human rights organization Global Exchange launched a grassroots Fair Trade Cocoa Campaign today, on Valentine’s Day, to pressure the chocolate industry to take substantial steps to help end modern day child slavery and poverty wages in the production of cocoa. It was a nationwide day of action in over 30 US cities.

“When most people bite into a piece of chocolate this Valentine’s Day, it is unlikely that they will consider where the chocolate comes from. If they knew, it probably would not taste as sweet,” says Deborah James, Fair Trade Director at San Francisco-based Global Exchange.

Recent investigations have uncovered a reemergence of child slavery and oppressive labor conditions in the cocoa fields of the Ivory Coast, the origin of 43 percent of the world's cocoa. In recent years approximately 15,000 children aged 9 to 12 have been sold into forced labor on cotton, coffee and cocoa plantations in the north of the country.

Cocoa prices are currently in a slump, a casualty of global overproduction. In order to maintain their profits, plantation owners in developing countries have turned to child slavery and paying adult workers poverty wages in order to keep the price of labor down.

“We are asking US chocolate companies like See’s Candies, Inc. to help end child slavery and unfair labor practices by buying at least five percent of their chocolate as Fair Trade Certified. Because of the low prices they pay for cocoa and their immense profits from the chocolate they sell, these corporations are benefiting from child slavery and unjust labor conditions. If the corporations really wanted to abolish child slavery and worker exploitation, they have the power to do so,” adds James.

Fair Trade cocoa guarantees that cooperatives of poor farmers are paid a fair price for their harvests, allowing them to provide with dignity for themselves and their families. While the global price for cocoa hovers around 40 cents per pound, the Fair Trade system guarantees farmers approximately 80 cents per pound.

“This Valentine’s Day, it is up to us, the consumers, to let the big chocolate companies know that we demand products that matches our desire for freedom and fairness for ourselves and the young African slaves who produce their chocolate,” adds James.