We wish to inform your conscience that your heavy demand for chocolate is fueling child and slave labour in West Africa!!! This is an account of the cruelest form of labour exploitation happening right under our noses for decades now. This is an account BBC will never reveal to you, neither will CNN disclose this to you and sadly, African bourgeois media houses will also not reveal this to you because the “massa” is paying pretty well!!! A recent discovery which can be traced back to the year 2000 has revealed that there is still the continuous use of slave labour and child labour in most West African cocoa farms, in order to meet up with the persistent demand for cocoa by foreign chocolate factories, companies in Europe, America, and of recent in the Asian continent!!! Of recent, the continuous use of child labour on cocoa farms was discovered in Cote dIvoire. Historically, this is not a new phenomenon in Ivory Coast. It will be recalled that the development of cocoa as a cash crop in Africa in the late 19th century can be linked to slavery and forced labour!!! It will be recalled also that, during the early phase of colonial rule in Africa, many African farmers were forced to grow cocoa so just to supply cheap produce to foreign chocolate companies in the metropolis. In Angola, the Portuguese colonialists arranged for the transportation of young Africans to work on cocoa estates in places like Sao Tome and Principe!!! In Angola alone, between 1888 and 1908, over 67,000 people from the African mainland were shipped against their will to work on these cocoa estates owned by the Portuguese. Even till 1955 Africans were still forced to work on these cocoa fields in circumstances barely distinguishable from slavery!!! The British government did the same in places like Ghana, Nigeria. Cocoa farms owned by the British government were established, wherein Africans were forced to work upon. In most cases, little or nothing were given to the farmers. Usually these farmers were made to believe that they are working for the betterment of their country!!! Cocoa naturally was not an African indigenous crop but it adapted to the African land because of the fertile soil of motherland. This was particularly true about Cote d Ivoire, which became the Worlds largest producer in the early 60s and even prior!!! It is so unfortunate to note that after so many years of independence little has changed about the exploitation of Africans on cocoa farms. Child labour is still widespread on Ivory Coast cocoa farms supplying chocolate factories like Nestle, Cargill, directly!!! Today, large numbers of children from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Togo are trafficked to Congo, Cote dIvoire, Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria to work on cocoa farms. Through this medium Ivory Coast produces roughly half of the world’s cocoa today!!! Children as young as nine are tricked or sold into slavery to work on cocoa plantations in these places because of the monies collected from these foreign firms. Companies like Cadbury (Nestle), Cargil, ED&F Man and Barry Callebaut are deeply involved in these inhumane dealings!!! Why do we think the chocolate companies are benefiting from this? It has come to our notice that these factories, mostly outside the African continent has paid no attention about informing farmers on the legislation applying to labour conditions in the cocoa industries!!! These capitalist industries felt its none of their responsibilities towards the conditions of people producing the cocoa of which they depend on. These capitalist countries over the long years have been preventing these reports from going into the public by bribing local news agencies and sell-outs African trade unionists and even leaders!!! As such to a great extent, issues that has to do with labour exploitation and trafficking in the cocoa sector and the whole issue of labour migration, trafficking and exploitation across the region has remained undiscovered!!! These capitalist companies in a way to influence the decisions of the farmers works alongside with foreign bodies to influence the prices of cocoa at the International market by bringing it down so that indigenous cocoa farmers would have no option but to employ children who are legally too young to work on their farms!!! If the estimation of young Africans working their fingers to the bones on these cocoa farms can be made, it is of assumption that a large part of the chocolate you eat would be tainted with slavery. So while you are negligently consuming your chocolates in your comfort zones, young Africans somewhere in West Africa, who will never have an education are busy working their lives on cocoa farms!!! Do not get this wrong, African leaders shares a greater part of the blame, as many has paid little or no attention to this inhumane act. Also in a way to bamboozle the world some chocolate industries have promised to look into it but to be real, nothing worthwhile has been done about this!!! Amadou, previously one of the over 200,000 estimated children to be enslaved in cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast alone, told the “Free the Slaves” campaign members that; “When people eat chocolate, they are eating my flesh.” How about boycotting these chocolate factories to attract international attention for condemnations and actions??? We share realities of this very nature for you to know that the African Continent is at war. The Western world through their capitalist agencies has long declared a war on Africans. Only our awareness can save us. We must get organized and free our people from persistent exploitation, oppression and suppression!!!
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 17:53:21 +0000
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