Please Customs and Border Protection, DO YOUR JOB!!!

The US Customs and Border Protection Agency is sitting on something that could really help.

The Department of Labor has cocoa listed as a child labor and forced child labor commodity. The industrial chocolate industry knows this as they clearly admit it is part of their supply chain and promised to clean this up in 2001 when it signed the Harkin Engel Protocol. Unfortunately, it hasn’t. Despite a slew of paltry initiatives, no positive change as been recorded. What has been documented by the Department of Labor is that the number of exploited children in the cocoa sector of Ghana and The Ivory Coast has risen.

But get this, the US Customs and Border Patrol Agency is supposed to issue an embargo and halt the import of these beans. It’s law. But despite and endless amount of outreach including a detailed petition, they haven’t done their job.

Below are the screen shots to a response that International Rights Advocates receive over 2 years after they filed a detailed petition.

After working on this issue for 16 years now, I really believe that halting these beans would help inspire the complicit industrial chocolate companies to fulfill the promises they not only gave to these children but the rest of the world.

Ayn Riggs

Director Slave Free Chocolate

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

A Case Against Big Chocolate by Clay Gordon of The Chocolate Life

“Big Chocolate” gets hauled into court for failing to live up to its promises to curb human trafficking in their cocoa supply chains.

Before the sun rose on the Capitol this morning, Friday February 12th 2021, the non-profit organization International Rights Advocates filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of eight former child slaves of Malian origin who were trafficked from Mali and subjected to forced labor harvesting and cultivating cocoa beans on farms in Côte d’Ivoire.

Click here to read the rest of the article The Chocolate Life

Do You Really Want Change?--By Erin Andrews of Indi Chocolate

Do You Really Want Change?

Many of the familiar candy bars we’ve grown up with, passed out for
Halloween, and chocolate we’ve baked into holiday treats, contain
ingredients created by enslaved child labor. This candy is available
now at a store near you, but the low, low prices are only possible
because of business practices that would turn your stomach.

Lawyers representing Nestle and Cargill were in the Supreme Court
yesterday because the companies for decades chose ingredients that
they knew were grown and processed with enslaved child labor.

The largest, most profitable multinational chocolate corporations
confirm they were aware the children were working without pay or
liberty, and that they were not working on their own family farms.
These corporations have publicly confirmed that they are buying
ingredients that they know use internationally trafficked children.

The case before the Supreme Court is not about whether these practices
exist today, or who knew about them. The question is why these large,
profitable US corporations have been able to get away with this for so
long without accountability or consequences.

They have long acknowledged the problem but have made no meaningful
progress in solving it, despite having the resources to do so.

Let’s be honest. Choosing to not take action will continue the problem
It doesn’t resolve it.

Choosing profits over ethics prolongs unacceptable colonial traditions.

Can we, as Americans, finally acknowledge that these corporations are
not going to change unless there are consequences? At what point is
the cost of not actually doing what is ethical, decent and right
become too much, unacceptable and intolerable? These corporations are
making conscious choices to see how long they can get away with it.

At what point do the corporation’s continued broken promises and lack
of meaningful action have consequences? How long are we going to allow
them to get away with this?

These are important questions the Supreme Court and US citizens need
to address right now.

This case before the Supreme Court is about making these corporations
accountable and having consequences for not really doing anything
about it. Shouldn’t there be consequences if that is the only thing
that will finally make these corporations do what they promised and
could have changed long ago?

These US corporations shouldn’t be exempt from laws and accountability
because they pretend that they are going to resolve this issue at some
date pushed further and further into the future when all they have
proven to us so far is they have made a choice to try to get away with
it for as long as they can.

Shouldn’t the US judicial system hold these US corporations legally
accountable for their actions (and knowingly choosing to not take
meaningful action) even when they occur out of sight in a faraway
country?

When is the US Justice System, and laws of our nation that make the US
such an economic powerhouse, going to give these corporations
meaningful consequences so they will finally make the change?

When US corporations enjoy the many benefits like freedom of speech,
laws and judicial process that are fundamental to doing business (such
as enforceable contracts and reliable, dependable financial
institutions), as well as use of our public assets (from our taxpayer
investment in roads, bridges, and airwaves to defense spending
investment that created GPS and the Internet they use), shouldn’t
these corporations also be held responsible too?

Here is our opportunity to do what is right. Our US corporations
should reflect American leadership and values.

America has a choice to make. This is our time to lead and not follow.

Please let our US Supreme Court justices know how important our
integrity and values are as a nation, a people and a US corporation.
Let us be leaders of doing what is right so we can hold our heads
high.

If you would like to support more ethical chocolate companies, put
your money where your mouth is and vote with your dollars,
www.slavefreechocolate.org has many suggestions.

Erin Andrews
Founder and CEO of indi chocolate (Seattle, WA)
Co-Founder of Cotton Tree Chocolate (a Belize company)

How Cheap is that Chocolate in the Window? by Ayn Riggs

How cheap is that chocolate in the window?- Ayn Riggs, Director of Slave Free Chocolate. 

On December 1st the oral arguments for Doe. vs. Nestlé and Cargill will be presented to the Supreme Court of the United States. This case goes beyond simply seeking justice for children who were trafficked and held in slavery It will determine if American corporations are entitled to receive immunity if human rights abuses occur in their supply chains outside of the U.S. If Doe (boys, trafficked in from Mali and sold into slavery to work the cocoa farms of Côte d’ Ivoire) wins, then the United States will show the world that the US is on the side of the high ethical standards an humanity that we promote in our values. If Nestle and Cargill win, we are telling the world that slavery is trending again; turn a blind eye and enjoy consumer chocolate and other consumer goods at rock bottom prices. 

At first glance it might be easy to side with these corporations. Maybe, we hope, these large companies were unaware of the fact  that child slaves were  used to harvest the cocoa that ends up in our chocolate bars.  Go to any of the big chocolate company websites (Nestlé, Mars, Hershey Cadbury etc.) and you will find whole sections stating their ethical stance on sustainability. You will find photo after photo of happy farmers and smiling children donning school uniforms in company-built schools with big smiles on their faces and schoolbooks tucked under their arms. You will find they are part of an NGO called the World Cocoa Federation that is making all of this happen. Nothing looks amiss. Why would one question this? Why would they go through all of this work to deceive?

The answer is profit. Most of the big chocolate companies have shareholders. A CEO’s number one priority is profit. Any wrinkle in an effective profit strategy and the CEO will likely lose his or her job. The horrors of illegal child labor and child slavery were exposed in the late 1990s. , Congressional Representative, Eliot Engel, suggested a stamp on chocolate bars; “Child Slavery Free” so consumers would know what they were buying. To thwart this legislation, big chocolate companies including but not limited to Mars, Nestle, Cargill, Hershey and Cadbury all signed a non-binding protocol (Harkin Engel Protocol) in 2001 in which they admitted to knowing that they were profiting off the backs of children who were not going to school, were far from emergency medical services, were working with dangerous pesticides and that many were being trafficked into the cocoa farms from Mali and Burkina Faso and sold as slaves. They promised to clean all of this up. They formed an NGO, the World Cocoa Federation, which would act as the vehicle of remediation. The problem is that they didn’t fund this properly, so it acted merely as a public relations platform by funding paltry initiatives to provide photo ops for websites, with an aim to keep investigative journalists and activists in the dark. Big chocolate has been playing a cat and mouse game with many informed and enraged consumers, activists, and investigative journalists for the last 20 years. Sadly, they are winning. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of exploited children has only increased since the Harkin-Engel Protocol was signed. 

I’ve watched all of this closely for the last 15 years. I founded Slave Free Chocolate.org to bring consumer awareness to the inhumane treatment of these two million children. 

Fair-trade initiatives have the right idea but have failed to make a large enough dent to bring forth any change. Remediation has to include the large companies profiting from the situation. They have the money and power to make a difference and fix it. 

Now we are right up on the end of Doe. vs. Nestlé and Cargill. What it comes down to is clear. Are we as a country going to be patting the backs of corporations for sticking to the strategy that puts a few more pennies in shareholder’s pockets? Or we are going to lead by example that humanity counts; that children matter. 

As consumers we DO have the power to help these children.  It is time we use it. Write to the complicit chocolate companies and your legislative representatives.  Let’s  engage our hearts for this cause and our voices on our social media audiences. You can find a list of offending companies, more details of the situation,  and other ways to make your voice count on SlaveFreeChocolate.org. 

Ayn Riggs is the founder and director of Slave Free Chocolate, slavefreechocolate.org @slavefreecocoa on twitter. 

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

Recent Question Regarding Nestlè, by Ayn Riggs

Question: I always seek out only fair trade chocolate. I always avoided Nestle and Hershey, but recently heard on a radio segment that Nestle had done a lot to ensure their chocolate was not coming from unethical sources. Your site, however, suggests nothing much has changed. Is Nestle doing any better? Or should I return to my chocolate chip-less ways?

SFC’s Answer: Thank you for writing in. Do you remember where you heard that radio segment? If so, pass it on. I may be able to hear an archive of it. But to answer your question, Nestle is lying. Sure they have made some paltry initiatives so that they can take a photo of some kids in front of a single school they may have built but only to dupe consumers.

There are really only about 6 companies that purchase the 60% of cocoa tied to child labor and slavery and Nestlè, as well as Hershey, are right there. They all say that they are doing their part in ensuring that their cocoa is traceable. If that were the case then the numbers (of children at risk) by the US Dept. of Labor would be going down and not up.

These farmers that are at the end of the supply line about 800,000 of them have tiny plots of land (about 4 hectares). They are deep in the bush where there is no electricity, schools or access to medical care. They don' thave cars either. They harvest their beans and put them on a road and a middle man hands them some cash. They make about .50 cents a day which is 2/3 below the poverty line. If they don't have enough of their own children, they may resort to buying some, under a tree in a makeshift auction.

Additionally, without infrastructure farmers are practicing poor farming techniques. Where a cocoa tree should last a good 40 years, these are lasting about 3 to 4. So these farmers are going into protected forests and deforesting the native trees with Round-up. I am sure they use this on more legit farms but are absolutely soaking the ground with this so that they can plant more cocoa trees. If you go to our FB page and scroll down you will see a video from a French reporter. You don't need to speak French to understand it. https://www.facebook.com/Slave-Free-Chocolate-185449184662/?ref=bookmarks

I think you can find Fair Trade chocolate chips online. I believe Equal Exchange makes them!

Thanks for writing in and caring about this issue.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Two billion dollars will be spent on candy for Halloween.   Awareness of this situation has come a long long way but the numbers of children working under the "worst forms of child labor" and children trafficked to work as slaves on the cocoa farms has risen.  These kids need the help of the western consumers now more than ever.  Vote with your voice. Vote with your dollar.  Demand that Hershey's, Nestlé, Cargill, ADM and the rest make good on their promises of 2001 and remedy this situation.  The money is there, the law suits are going, Ghana and Ivory Coast are more stable. Now is the time.  Let's win this war against modern day slavery.