There are various initiatives being proposed going on at the government lever in the US, Canada and the EU. None of them are written prioritizing the children they are claiming to help. All are prioritizing the corporate lobbies. Here is one regarding a Canadian proposal.
IRAdvocates and CAL letter to U.S. Custom and Border Protection
Mr. Chris Magnus
Commissioner
U.S. Custom and Border Protection U.S. Department of Homeland Security 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20229
February 14, 2022
Re: Request that you enforce the law to stop forced child labor in cocoa harvesting Dear Commissioner Magnus,
Congratulations on your appointment and best wishes in addressing the many challenges you face.
We, the undersigned, are writing to ask you to take long overdue action to address an urgent problem of ongoing forced child labor in cocoa harvesting in Côte d’Ivoire. Two years ago, on February 14, 2020, International Rights Advocates and Corporate Accountability Lab filed a petition under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (“the Petition”) asking that U.S. Custom and Border Protection (CBP) take action, as provided for in its legislation, to ban the importation of cocoa by nine specific companies1 with clear records of harvesting cocoa with forced child labor in Côte d’Ivoire . The Petition referenced official, undisputed reports confirming massive numbers of child laborers in cocoa harvesting and supplemental evidence that many of these children are trafficked and forced to work on cocoa plantations. This past summer, on June 25, 2021, the Petitioners submitted a supplemental petition to CBP providing further evidence of trafficking and forced child labor in the Ivorian cocoa industry. This petition looked not just at specific instances of forced labor, but also documented new information about the manner in which child trafficking occurs, including through which border crossings, and identified specific actors involved in the trade. In our view, the inaction on the Petition is allowing horrific forced child labor to continue in cocoa harvesting and sharply conflicts with stated U.S. government policy.
We draw to your attention the following undisputable facts:
Clear evidence has been submitted to CBP documenting widespread, ongoing use of forced and trafficked child labor in harvesting and processing cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire.
The U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. State Department have both clearly documented the trafficking of children and forced child labor in the Côte d’Ivoire cocoa sector.
The Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group’s Annual Report provides ample evidence of forced child labor in the cocoa industry.
Reports from the Fair Labor Association, civil society groups, academics, as well as news reports, have documented evidence of forced child labor in the cocoa industry for years.
The Department of Labor has since 2008 published an annual list of products made with forced and child labor. Cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire has been on the list every year.
1 Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey, Mondelēz, World’s Finest Chocolate, Inc., and Blommer Chocolate Co.
ILO Convention 182 regarding the Worst Forms of Child Labor, ratified by the U.S. in 1999, prohibits forced child labor.
The documented conditions of the children working in the cocoa industry in Côte d’Ivoire are well within the ILO’s indicators
of “forced labor.” Child workers are inherently vulnerable and carry out hazardous work,
including using machetes, carrying heavy loads, and spraying pesticides.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor released a study it commissioned by the University
of Chicago’s NORC Institute finding that there are 1.56 million children harvesting cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and 95% of these children, 1.48 million, are performing hazardous work that violates ILO Convention 182’s definition of the Worst Forms of Child Labor and should also meet the ILO's indicators of forced labor.
Thus, the U.S. government has officially established and condemns that forced child labor is involved in harvesting cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire .
For over 20 years the chocolate industry has exerted its power and influence to prevent the U.S. government from taking action to end the industry’s use of child labor. In 2001, to defeat a pending U.S. law to regulate the companies’ supply chains, the chocolate industry signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a “voluntary” initiative that gave the participating companies until 2005 to “phase out” their use of child labor. Two decades later, the chocolate industry has failed to take the necessary action to achieve their “voluntary” target and has given itself endless, self-serving, unilateral extensions of time. The industry now claims that by 2025 it will merely “reduce by 70%” their reliance on child labor.
The chocolate industry’s “voluntary” plan and public relations statements that it will end its use of child labor have zero credibility. The industry puts out contradictory messages, admitting on the one hand its use of child labor and pledging to end it. On the other hand, it argues in a pending federal case that it has no more responsibility for ending forced child labor in cocoa harvesting than a kid buying a candy bar at a store, the claims of eight former child slave laborers against the chocolate companies should be dismissed, and the chocolate companies granted impunity.2
Under CBP regulations, 19 C.F.R. § 12.42, if a Petition establishes that there is “reason to believe” cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire was produced by forced child labor, this allows CBP to “reasonably but not conclusively” find that cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire is produced by forced child labor and issue a Withhold and Release Order (WRO) stopping the importation of cocoa by the named companies from Côte d’Ivoire. This threshold has been clearly established by the Petition. The issuance of a WRO would require any of the named importing companies to establish “by satisfactory evidence that [its] merchandise was not ... manufactured in any part with” forced child labor.
The chocolate companies would then at long last be required to demonstrate whether they are profiting from forced child labor and to take real action to end it. Many of the responsible
2 See Defendants’ Joint Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 27-1 at p. 11, Issouf Coubaly, et. al.v. Cargill Inc., et. al., Civil Action No. 21-0386 (D.DC 2021), available at https://www.internationalrightsadvocates.org/cases/tevracoubaly.
Young children are incapable of consenting to carry out
hazardous labor. Child labor that requires children to work at the expense of their health,
schooling, or well-being must be considered forced.
2
companies loudly proclaim there is no forced child labor in their cocoa supply chains. If they can’t, after 20 years of promising, prove this essential fact, they should not be extended the privilege of access to the U.S. market. The Petition suggested a flexible approach as to the timing of the requested WRO, and we are confident that giving the companies notice that a WRO is coming on a specific date will be the push needed to shift the cocoa industry from vague and empty promises to concrete action that it promised in signing the Harkin-Engel Protocol more than 20 years ago.
However, CBP has for the past two years taken no enforcement action based on the strong evidence presented in the Petition. It has taken no action to enforce the clear prohibition in the legislation on importing cocoa harvested by forced child labor. It has taken no action to implement the clear, strong policy of the U.S. government to prevent this continuing abuse of children. If CBP continues to decline to take action, this would send a message that the U.S. Government is turning a blind eye to the known use of forced child labor by powerful chocolate companies.
We recognize that the chocolate industry has enormous economic and political power and that the children being exploited and trafficked as child laborers do not. However, the law and policy of the United States is to protect children forced to work, and this should be especially true when they are being exploited by large multinationals that made a written promise over 20 years ago to stop this horrific practice. We are merely asking for the very relief that the chocolate industry itself promised to deliver over 20 years ago.
We call on you to put the lives of millions of children in West Africa ahead of the business interests of the chocolate industry. We call on you to enforce the law you are sworn to uphold to free these children from forced labor. We call on you to demonstrate that the U.S. Government’s policy that it will not tolerate forced child labor is genuine and serious.
We await your response with strong hope. Please direct your response to the Petitioners, Terrence Collingsworth (tc@iradvocates.org) and Charity Ryerson (charity@corpaccountabilitylab.org).
SIGNED:
CO-PETITIONERS
Terrence P. Collingsworth, Founder and Executive Director, International Rights Advocates
Charity Ryerson, Founder and Executive Director, Corporate Accountability Lab
Paul L. Hoffman, Co-Director, UC Irvine Civil Rights Litigation Clinic
ORGANIZATIONS
Cathy Feingold, International Director, AFL-CIO
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Willie Adams, President, International Longshore Warehouse Union
Ed Ferris, Secretary Treasurer, International Longshore Warehouse Union
Bobby Olvera Jr., Vice President – Mainland, International Longshore Warehouse Union
Reid Maki, Coordinator, Child Labor Coalition
Sally Greenberg, Executive Director, National Consumers League
Duncan Jepson, Managing Director, Liberty Shared
Dana Geffner, Executive Director, Fair World Project
Nina Smith, Executive Director, Goodweave
Ayn Riggs, Executive Director, Slavefreechocolate
Martina Vandenberg, Founder and President, Human Trafficking Legal Center
Patti Lynn, Executive Director, Corporate Accountability, USA
Georges C. Benjamin, MD, Executive Director, American Public Health Association, USA
Shahieda Adams, Director, Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Devra Davis, President, Environmental Health Trust, USA and Fellow, Collegium Ramazzini Lauren Ornelas, President, Food Empowerment Project
Prof. John Packer, Director, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Diana Bohn, Co-coordinator, Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Perry Gottesfeld, Executive Director, Occupational Knowledge International Peggy Mason, President, Rideau Institute on International Affairs, Ottawa, Canada. Grahame Russell, Director, Rights Action. USA & Canada.
Tientcheu Kameni Maurice, Terre et Développement, France.
Gopal Krishna, LL.M., PhD, Director, ToxicsWatch Alliance, New Delhi, India. Ayda Zugay, Principal and Co-Founder, Advancing Agency
Len Morris, Executive Director, Media Voices for Children
4Mr. Chris Magnus
Commissioner
U.S. Custom and Border Protection U.S. Department of Homeland Security 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20229
February 14, 2022
Re: Request that you enforce the law to stop forced child labor in cocoa harvesting Dear Commissioner Magnus,
Congratulations on your appointment and best wishes in addressing the many challenges you face.
We, the undersigned, are writing to ask you to take long overdue action to address an urgent problem of ongoing forced child labor in cocoa harvesting in Côte d’Ivoire. Two years ago, on February 14, 2020, International Rights Advocates and Corporate Accountability Lab filed a petition under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (“the Petition”) asking that U.S. Custom and Border Protection (CBP) take action, as provided for in its legislation, to ban the importation of cocoa by nine specific companies1 with clear records of harvesting cocoa with forced child labor in Côte d’Ivoire . The Petition referenced official, undisputed reports confirming massive numbers of child laborers in cocoa harvesting and supplemental evidence that many of these children are trafficked and forced to work on cocoa plantations. This past summer, on June 25, 2021, the Petitioners submitted a supplemental petition to CBP providing further evidence of trafficking and forced child labor in the Ivorian cocoa industry. This petition looked not just at specific instances of forced labor, but also documented new information about the manner in which child trafficking occurs, including through which border crossings, and identified specific actors involved in the trade. In our view, the inaction on the Petition is allowing horrific forced child labor to continue in cocoa harvesting and sharply conflicts with stated U.S. government policy.
We draw to your attention the following undisputable facts:
Clear evidence has been submitted to CBP documenting widespread, ongoing use of forced and trafficked child labor in harvesting and processing cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire.
The U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. State Department have both clearly documented the trafficking of children and forced child labor in the Côte d’Ivoire cocoa sector.
The Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group’s Annual Report provides ample evidence of forced child labor in the cocoa industry.
Reports from the Fair Labor Association, civil society groups, academics, as well as news reports, have documented evidence of forced child labor in the cocoa industry for years.
The Department of Labor has since 2008 published an annual list of products made with forced and child labor. Cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire has been on the list every year.
1 Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey, Mondelēz, World’s Finest Chocolate, Inc., and Blommer Chocolate Co.
ILO Convention 182 regarding the Worst Forms of Child Labor, ratified by the U.S. in 1999, prohibits forced child labor.
The documented conditions of the children working in the cocoa industry in Côte d’Ivoire are well within the ILO’s indicators
of “forced labor.” Child workers are inherently vulnerable and carry out hazardous work,
including using machetes, carrying heavy loads, and spraying pesticides.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor released a study it commissioned by the University
of Chicago’s NORC Institute finding that there are 1.56 million children harvesting cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and 95% of these children, 1.48 million, are performing hazardous work that violates ILO Convention 182’s definition of the Worst Forms of Child Labor and should also meet the ILO's indicators of forced labor.
Thus, the U.S. government has officially established and condemns that forced child labor is involved in harvesting cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire .
For over 20 years the chocolate industry has exerted its power and influence to prevent the U.S. government from taking action to end the industry’s use of child labor. In 2001, to defeat a pending U.S. law to regulate the companies’ supply chains, the chocolate industry signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a “voluntary” initiative that gave the participating companies until 2005 to “phase out” their use of child labor. Two decades later, the chocolate industry has failed to take the necessary action to achieve their “voluntary” target and has given itself endless, self-serving, unilateral extensions of time. The industry now claims that by 2025 it will merely “reduce by 70%” their reliance on child labor.
The chocolate industry’s “voluntary” plan and public relations statements that it will end its use of child labor have zero credibility. The industry puts out contradictory messages, admitting on the one hand its use of child labor and pledging to end it. On the other hand, it argues in a pending federal case that it has no more responsibility for ending forced child labor in cocoa harvesting than a kid buying a candy bar at a store, the claims of eight former child slave laborers against the chocolate companies should be dismissed, and the chocolate companies granted impunity.2
Under CBP regulations, 19 C.F.R. § 12.42, if a Petition establishes that there is “reason to believe” cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire was produced by forced child labor, this allows CBP to “reasonably but not conclusively” find that cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire is produced by forced child labor and issue a Withhold and Release Order (WRO) stopping the importation of cocoa by the named companies from Côte d’Ivoire. This threshold has been clearly established by the Petition. The issuance of a WRO would require any of the named importing companies to establish “by satisfactory evidence that [its] merchandise was not ... manufactured in any part with” forced child labor.
The chocolate companies would then at long last be required to demonstrate whether they are profiting from forced child labor and to take real action to end it. Many of the responsible
2 See Defendants’ Joint Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 27-1 at p. 11, Issouf Coubaly, et. al.v. Cargill Inc., et. al., Civil Action No. 21-0386 (D.DC 2021), available at https://www.internationalrightsadvocates.org/cases/tevracoubaly.
Young children are incapable of consenting to carry out
hazardous labor. Child labor that requires children to work at the expense of their health,
schooling, or well-being must be considered forced.
2
companies loudly proclaim there is no forced child labor in their cocoa supply chains. If they can’t, after 20 years of promising, prove this essential fact, they should not be extended the privilege of access to the U.S. market. The Petition suggested a flexible approach as to the timing of the requested WRO, and we are confident that giving the companies notice that a WRO is coming on a specific date will be the push needed to shift the cocoa industry from vague and empty promises to concrete action that it promised in signing the Harkin-Engel Protocol more than 20 years ago.
However, CBP has for the past two years taken no enforcement action based on the strong evidence presented in the Petition. It has taken no action to enforce the clear prohibition in the legislation on importing cocoa harvested by forced child labor. It has taken no action to implement the clear, strong policy of the U.S. government to prevent this continuing abuse of children. If CBP continues to decline to take action, this would send a message that the U.S. Government is turning a blind eye to the known use of forced child labor by powerful chocolate companies.
We recognize that the chocolate industry has enormous economic and political power and that the children being exploited and trafficked as child laborers do not. However, the law and policy of the United States is to protect children forced to work, and this should be especially true when they are being exploited by large multinationals that made a written promise over 20 years ago to stop this horrific practice. We are merely asking for the very relief that the chocolate industry itself promised to deliver over 20 years ago.
We call on you to put the lives of millions of children in West Africa ahead of the business interests of the chocolate industry. We call on you to enforce the law you are sworn to uphold to free these children from forced labor. We call on you to demonstrate that the U.S. Government’s policy that it will not tolerate forced child labor is genuine and serious.
We await your response with strong hope. Please direct your response to the Petitioners, Terrence Collingsworth (tc@iradvocates.org) and Charity Ryerson (charity@corpaccountabilitylab.org).
SIGNED:
CO-PETITIONERS
Terrence P. Collingsworth, Founder and Executive Director, International Rights Advocates Charity Ryerson, Founder and Executive Director, Corporate Accountability Lab
Paul L. Hoffman, Co-Director, UC Irvine Civil Rights Litigation Clinic
ORGANIZATIONS
Cathy Feingold, International Director, AFL-CIO
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Willie Adams, President, International Longshore Warehouse Union
3
Ed Ferris, Secretary Treasurer, International Longshore Warehouse Union
Bobby Olvera Jr., Vice President – Mainland, International Longshore Warehouse Union
Reid Maki, Coordinator, Child Labor Coalition
Sally Greenberg, Executive Director, National Consumers League
Duncan Jepson, Managing Director, Liberty Shared
Dana Geffner, Executive Director, Fair World Project
Nina Smith, Executive Director, Goodweave
Ayn Riggs, Executive Director, Slavefreechocolate
Martina Vandenberg, Founder and President, Human Trafficking Legal Center
Patti Lynn, Executive Director, Corporate Accountability, USA
Georges C. Benjamin, MD, Executive Director, American Public Health Association, USA
Shahieda Adams, Director, Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Devra Davis, President, Environmental Health Trust, USA and Fellow, Collegium Ramazzini Lauren Ornelas, President, Food Empowerment Project
Prof. John Packer, Director, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Diana Bohn, Co-coordinator, Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Perry Gottesfeld, Executive Director, Occupational Knowledge International Peggy Mason, President, Rideau Institute on International Affairs, Ottawa, Canada. Grahame Russell, Director, Rights Action. USA & Canada.
Tientcheu Kameni Maurice, Terre et Développement, France.
Gopal Krishna, LL.M., PhD, Director, ToxicsWatch Alliance, New Delhi, India. Ayda Zugay, Principal and Co-Founder, Advancing Agency
Len Morris, Executive Director, Media Voices for Children
Supreme Court Shoots Down Child Slavery Lawsuit Against Nestle and Cargill
The justices noted that, even after 15 years of litigation, the plaintiffs could not demonstrate that either company knew that certain cocoa farms and cooperatives used child labor.
The United States Supreme Court has found that a group of former child slaves cannot sue two American chocolate companies.
According to USA Today, the lawsuit has reached its conclusion after a 15-year-long court battle. The initial complaint was filed by six citizens of the West African nation of Mali, who say they were trafficked to Ivory Coast to work as slaves on cocoa plantations. Read the rest of the article on legalreader.com CLICK HERE
SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS CONDEMN MULTINATIONAL CHOCOLATE COMPANIES FOR THEIR USE OF CHILD SLAVE LABOR
(San Francisco, California) In a groundbreaking resolution passed on Tuesday, April 6, San Francisco County Board of Supervisors called for Mars, Nestlé, and other major chocolate producers to immediately cease the use of child slave labor in their cocoa supply chains.
The Resolution describes the inhumane and illegal working conditions in today’s cocoa industry. Over 1.5 million children are illegally involved in cocoa harvesting and production, mainly in West African nations like Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, forced to endure hazardous working conditions for little or no pay.
Supervisor Dean Preston was a strong supporter of the resolution, arguing that it is past time for Mars, Nestlé, and other major chocolate producers to stop their use of child forced labor.
"The board passed a unanimous vote, a clear message to Mars and Nestlé that it’s time to stop utilizing child forced labor in global cocoa supply chains,” says Preston. “It’s a tragic reality for children in West Africa, and despite international condemnation and empty promises to change by these corporations, the issue persists.”
Despite decades of assurances that they will do better, major multinational chocolate companies like Mars, Nestlé, and Hershey have taken inadequate steps and ultimately failed to change their cocoa sourcing patterns in order to guarantee an ethical supply chain. According to Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director of IRAdvocates, these chocolate companies in particular have been full of empty promises when it comes to eradicating child slave labor in their supply chains.
“IRAdvocates and other organizations have been working for decades to get the large cocoa companies to keep their promise made in signing the 2001 Harkin-Engle Protocol to stop using child labor to harvest their cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire,” explains Collingsworth. “The cocoa companies have made crystal clear that they won't keep this promise unless a community devoted to ending child slavery in 2021 comes together to stop them.” Collingsworth hopes this recently passed resolution will serve as a model for concerned residents in cities and towns across the country.
Other chocolate companies— with much fewer resources than multinationals like Mars— are able to ethically source their cocoa; showing that slave free chocolate is an achievable goal.. Instead, major chocolate producers have consistently demonstrated that they care more about profit than they do about human welfare. Their race to source the cheapest possible cocoa, regardless of the human costs, has driven down industry standards and facilitated gross human rights violations that break international, domestic, and California law.
This resolution passed by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors is a strong step forward to show Mars, Nestlé, and other major chocolate producers that the residents of San Francisco are committed to holding companies responsible for their human rights violations.
Consumers have more power to create positive change than they might realize, explains Ayn Riggs, Executive Director of advocacy organization Slave Free Chocolate.
“Chocolate is a consumer product, which means when it comes to the eradication of child slavery in the industry, we, the consumers, have all of the power,” says Riggs. “And when this happens, it won't just be a win for the 1.5 million children working illegally in the chocolate industry but a win for humanity as well."
Press Release: Child Slaves Who Were Trafficked and Forced to Harvest Cocoa in Cote D’Ivoire Sue the Cocoa Companies that Enslaved Them: Nestle, Cargill, Mars, et el.
Fri, 02/12/2021 - 09:46 -- admin
Contact: Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director
tc@iradvocates.org 1-202-543-5811 @tpcollingsworth
The Complaint filed today and the full press release are attached below.
On February 12, 2021, IRAdvocates filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of eight Malian young men who managed to escape back to Mali after being trafficked as children and forced to harvest cocoa in Cote D’Ivoire for one or more of the Defendant companies, Nestle, Cargill, Mars, Mondelēz, Hershey, Barry Callebaut, and Olam. These companies have a long history of violating the law and participating in a venture in Cote D’Ivoire that relies upon child slaves to produce cheap cocoa. In 2001, they signed the “Harkin-Engle Protocol” in which they explicitly promised consumers and regulators they would stop using child labor by 2005. Instead, they have given themselves numerous unilateral extensions of time and now claim that by 2025 they will reduce by 70% their reliance on child labor. Rather than make progress, their use of child labor is actually getting worse. In late 2020, a study by NORC at the University of Chicago and funded by the U.S. Department of Labor concluded that 1.56 million child laborers were working in cocoa growing areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana in the 2018/19 growing season, an increase of 14 percent since a 2015 study, and 1.48 million child laborers engaged in hazardous work during this period
Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director of IRAdvocates, which represents the eight Malian Plaintiffs, stated “By giving themselves this series of extensions, these companies are admitting they ARE using child slaves and will continue to do so until they decide it’s in their interests to stop. Based on the objective record of twenty years of the failed Harkin-Engle Protocol, these companies will continue to profit from child slavery until they are forced to stop. The purpose of this lawsuit is to force them to stop. Enough is enough! Allowing the enslavement of African children in 2021 to harvest cocoa for major multinational companies is outrageous and must end.”
The case filed today is based primarily on the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1595 et. seq. This law allows victims of trafficking and forced labor to sue companies that participate in a “venture” and benefit from the trafficking or forced labor. The named Defendant companies have been cooperating in a venture for decades as they collaborate in a scheme to continue using child slaves while jointly promoting bogus programs they falsely claim are solving their child labor problem. They benefit by continuing to profit from selling cheap cocoa harvested by child slaves, including the eight Plaintiffs who filed this case. The TVPRA makes the companies jointly liable for child slavery on behalf of the “venture.”
IRAdvocates also filed a case on behalf of six former child slaves against Nestle and Cargill under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, in 2005. The case is still pending and was argued in the Supreme Court on December 1, 2020. The companies argued they are immune from liability for child slavery under international law. Collingsworth commented, “in filing this new case we want these companies to know we will use every possible legal tool available to make them stop abusing child slaves. We call upon the companies to work with us solve this problem, rather than spend millions in legal fees to fight an uncontestable fact – the cocoa industry is dependent upon child labor. ”
The full complaint of the new TVPRA case as well as information about the ATS case are available at www.IRAdvocates.com. Here is an article detailing the situation the cocoa slaves endure: https://www.justsecurity.org/73959/nestle-cargill-v-doe-series-meet-the-...
www.IRAdvocates.com
Ivory Coast cocoa farmers threaten to boycott industry sustainability programs by Ange Aboa for Reuters
YAMOUSSOUKRO (Reuters) - Cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast said on Thursday they would withdraw from chocolate industry sustainability programs if companies try to avoid paying a premium aimed at combating farmer poverty.
The world’s top producer introduced a $400 per tonne premium this season, known as a living income differential (LID), to increase farmer wages.
The move was welcomed by farmers, but it has driven up prices for Ivorian cocoa just as the coronavirus pandemic dents global demand, causing friction between large chocolate companies and the workers growing the raw crop.
At stake are the sustainability schemes that certify that the cocoa that international companies buy is free of environmental and human rights abuses.
They allow companies to market their chocolate as ethically produced and charge more for it, although the schemes cover less than half of Ivory Coast’s cocoa exports.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE
Nestlè & Cargill v. Doe Series: Corporate Liability, Child Savery and the Chocolate Industry
This story is by Chris Moxley of Just Security:
The world’s chocolate supply is undergirded by rampant practices of child labor under extremely hazardous conditions and, in some cases, slavery. According to the U.S. Bureau of International Labor Affairs, cocoa plantations in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana combine to produce 60 percent of the world’s cocoa. These plantations rely heavily on the labor of 2 million children working in hazardous conditions. Thousands of these child laborers are trafficked or forced into the work and may not be compensated for their labor, conditions amounting to slavery.
Read rest of the story HERE
Teen Vogue talks about Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry
Why Your Valentine's Day Chocolate Has A Dark Side
Cocoa farming reportedly relies on more than 5 million child laborers.
FEBRUARY 14, 2018
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
In this op-ed, Georgie Badiel, model, activist, author, and former Miss Africa, explains the risk of an unsustainable cocoa industry.