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Buying
Chocolate
Easter Eggs?
Were They Produced by Cocoa Plantation Slaves
in West Africa?
Cocoa
is the essential ingredient for making chocolate Easter
eggs. A significant proportion of the world
production of cocoa is grown and harvested on
plantations by African slaves.
These
slaves are on cocoa plantations in remote rural areas in
West Africa. Some of the chocolate Easter eggs
which we buy is made using slave cocoa. The slaves
are beaten by the overseer. They are not fed
properly. They work long hours. They are
locked up in a slave barracks at night. They are
beaten and often killed if they try to escape.
The
problem for consumers is to know the difference between
slave cocoa and free cocoa. Obviously, no
manufacturer labels its product as "Cocoa Grown
With Slave Labor".
As
a result of a mission by one of the Society's agents to
West Africa, the Society is compiling a list of slave
cocoa products.
As
a rule of thumb, the cocoa purchased by the more
expensive chocolate manufacturers tends to be free
cocoa. However, there is an exception. If
the manufacturer experiences an unexpected surge in
consumer demand and purchases cocoa on the spot market,
there is a significant risk that a proportion of the
purchase might have come from plantations in West Africa
which grow and harvest cocoa using slaves.
Conversely,
as a general rule of thumb, there is a risk that the
cheaper chocolates (which are often "No Label"
brands and the like) have been manufactured using cocoa
purchased on the spot market, a proportion of which may
be slave cocoa.
Since
the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire (the largest exporter of
cocoa with plantations were slaves work), exports from
that country have decreased and cocoa prices have
increased, so that there has been a decline in the use
of slaves on the plantations.
The material in this report is based on a Mission to
West Africa by the Society's Secretary-General.
Continued exploitation of children in cocoa
industry
April 3,
2007
Read the
BBC World Service
report
Last Updated
April 03, 2007 |
Links
to other pages dealing with this issue:
Current
campaigns
Internet
links to chocolate manufacturers:
World
Cocoa Foundation
Chocolate
Manufacturers Association
Hersheys
Cabury's
Rowntrees
The
Society is not responsible for the content of external
internet links
Links
to other pages dealing with slavery in West Africa:
West
African slave trade
Traditional
slavery in West Africa
Links
to pages dealing with consumer awareness:
Current
campaigns
Consumer
awareness
Goods
made by child labor
Chocolates
Diamonds
Carpets
made by child labor
Rugmark
Ethical
investment
Get
involved!
Fair
trade
Links
to other pages dealing with slavery:
Does
slavery still exist?
What
is slavery?
Child
slavery in South Asia
Hierodulic
servitude in South Asia
Odalisques
Rescuing
slaves
Slavery
Convention 1926
not
responsible for the content of
external internet sites. |
