Beware of slavery in chocolate, says Trade Aid

A fair trade advocate wants New Zealanders to boycott chocolate made on the back of child slavery.

Trade Aid General Manager Geoff White said child slavery was widespread in cocoa farms in Africa where much of the raw ingredients for chocolate comes from.

He wants consumers to ask chocolate makers if their chocolate is slave free.

"I would urge all consumers not to buy from any manufacturer who cannot answer simply 'Yes'."

"Slavery is abhorrent and a dark stain on humanity. It is hard to think of a viler act perpetrated by one person on another. That a product such as chocolate, a favourite of children everywhere, is reliant on child slavery to produce profits is a sorry indictment on all those involved," he said.

"Children as young as 10 or 11 are being bought by cocoa plantation owners and forced to work 12 hours a day under extreme conditions. At night they're locked up in tiny rooms together with hardly any light or ventilation and only a tin can as a toilet. These kids are being forced to carry massive loads jeopardising their health, and if they can't manage they're savagely beaten," said Mr White.

He said chocolate makers should put a 'slave free' label on their bars so consumers can make ethical choices when they buy, he said.

His call follows the back down by Cadbury this week from using palm oil in its chocolate - the palm oil industry is blamed for destroying rain forests, killing orang-utans.

In this case, Cadbury, one of New Zealand's major chocolate makers, supports Mr White's call for consumers to buy ethically produced chocolate.

Its chocolate bars this month started bearing a Free Trade label in the UK and Ireland which signifies cocoa and all other ingredients such as sugar were slave free and ethical.

Daniel Ellis, Cadbury corporate communications manager for New Zealand and Australia, said the company planned to gain Free Trade certification globally and it would be coming for all its bars sold in New Zealand.

Philip Poole, marketing manager for Whittakers Chocolates, said it too was confident its chocolate was slave free.

This Sunday happens to mark International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, which is why Trade Aid has started its boycott campaign.

Mr White cited an International Labour Organisation report from 2005 claiming there were more than 150,000 children working in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast alone, many as child slaves.

An estimated 12,000 of those children had been trafficked, according to the report.

Child slavery on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast became prevalent after cocoa prices fell during the 1980's and '90's, Mr White said.

Before then cocoa farmers were protected by a government supported price system but this was dismantled in a structural adjustment programme enforced by the IMF as a condition of World Bank loans, he said.

Living standards for farmers declined markedly and in an effort to cut production costs the use of child labour became widespread. Continuing low prices led eventually to the use of child slaves predominately trafficked across the border from Mali, Mr White said.

Mr White said child slavery was now also creeping into neighbouring Ghana.

"It is no longer possible to say purchasing from Ghana ensures no child slaves are involved in the supply chain," he said.

Mr Ellis said Cadbury acknowledged child slavery problems in Africa but believed there were no problems on the farms it bought from.

It purchased the bulk of its cocoa from Ghana, with some from South East Asia and ensured stringent and regular audits of the farms it bought from.

The company formed community partnerships in Ghana, putting money in to build infrastructure and improve the quality of life - it actively wanted to lift prices paid for cocoa and improve living standards.

"We pay a social premium for our cocoa," said Mr Ellis. "That's the right thing to do."

"There is a responsibility for all chocolate makers to make sure ingredients are ethically sourced. We've put a lot of work into this," Mr Ellis said.

"If a company like Cadbury can achieve that, other companies can do the same. We certainly encourage people to be vigilant in terms of the product they are looking for," he said.

Mr Poole said Whittakers also worked with the Ghanaian authorities to eliminate any slavery practices.

"There is a will amongst chocolate manufacturers and the government [of Ghana] to end abusive labour practises," Mr Poole said.

Mr White said if consumer action could stop Cadbury using palm oil to save the rainforests and the Indonesian orang-utan, then consumer action could force ethically sourced chocolate.

Cadbury caused a furore when it was revealed it had substituted cocoa butter with vegetable fat including palm oil.

Palm Oil is a contentious ingredient with reports blaming its plantations for huge contributions to global warming and intensive habitat destruction leading to the deaths of orang-utans in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Cadbury New Zealand managing director Matthew Oldham said he was "really sorry" about the decision to use palm oil and the reversal of that decision was a response to consumer feedback, including hundreds of letters and emails.

"At the time, we genuinely believed we were making the right decision, for the right reasons. But we got it wrong," he said.

Mr White said: "While concern for the environment and animals is justified it is unfortunate that a bigger scandal involving chocolate companies continues to fly under the radar," he said.

 

- © Fairfax NZ News