While we enjoy the sweet taste of chocolate, the reality is strikingly different for African children. The Dark Side of Chocolate is a documentary film about the exploitation and slave trading of African children to harvest chocolate still occurring nearly ten years after the cocoa industry pledged to end it. In 2001 consumers around the world were outraged to discover that child labor and slavery, trafficking, and other abuses existed on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, a country that produces nearly half the worlds cocoa. An avalanche of negative publicity and consumer demands for answers and solutions soon followed. Two members of US Congress, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Representative Eliot Engel of New York, tackled the issue by adding a rider to an agricultural bill proposing a federal system to certify and label chocolate products as slave free. The measure passed the House of Representatives and created a potential disaster for Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland Mars, Hersheys, Nestle, Barry Callebaut, Saf-Cacao and other chocolate manufacturers. To avoid legislation that would have forced chocolate companies to label their products with no child labor labels (for which many major chocolate manufacturers wouldnt qualify), the industry fought back and finally agreed to a voluntary protocol to end abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by 2005. That did not happen yet as of 2014. youtu.be/7Vfbv6hNeng
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 08:02:30 +0000
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