Fight against slavery continues

St Joseph School student Harry Durdey of Picton knows that chocolate is often made by child slaves working in the cocoa industry.

He knows because his grandmother Ena Hutchison, a volunteer in the Picton Trade Aid shop, told him about the hundreds of thousands of children working in the cocoa industry in inhumane conditions.

The St Joseph School student has decided to only eat chocolate he knows is free of any child slave labour component. "I like dark chocolate best but I only get it from Trade Aid," he said.

Trade Aid urges consumers to challenge chocolate manufacturers over the use of cocoa made with child slave labour.

The International Labour Organisation said in 2005 more than 150,000 children were working under the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa industry in Ivory Coast alone.

Trade Aid general manager Geoff White said children as young as 10 were bought by cocoa plantation owners and forced to work 12 hours a day under extreme conditions. At night they were locked up in tiny rooms together with hardly any light or ventilation and only a tin can as a toilet. They were forced to carry massive loads jeopardising their health, and if they could not manage they were savagely beaten, he said.

Many New Zealand chocolate companies source their cocoa beans from Ghana and simply claim Ghana does not have a child-slavery problem.

Mr White said this was perhaps so a few years ago but faced with unfair competition due to lower prices from neighbouring Ivory Coast, cocoa farmers in Ghana were beginning to use child labour that could spiral into the use of child slaves. "Already it is no longer possible to say purchasing from Ghana ensures no child slaves are involved in the supply chain," he said.

Manager of the Picton Trade Aid shop, Lorna McMahon, said Trade Aid whose chocolate was 100 per cent slave free encouraged consumers to pressure chocolate companies to answer the question She said after a 17, 000 strong petition was presented to parliament in 2007 the Government recommended corporate companies voluntarily labelled products slave free. "But is voluntary labelling good enough? Unfortunately a recent bill calling for a ban on the imports of goods made with slave labour was thrown out of parliament. Labour, Greens, United Future and Maori parties backed it."

Unless people buy Trade Aid chocolate there is no way of knowing whether it is made without a child labour component.

This Sunday is International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.

"Is is right that slavery still exists to provide us with our indulgences?" Ms McMahon asked. For more information check out www.sweetjustice.org.nz or www.tradeaid.org.nz Fairfax

- The Marlborough Express