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 slavetrading. BV 11-11 The Dark Side of Chocolate – Child Slavery “The Dark Side of Chocolate” directed by Miki Mistrati shows that young children are still being illegally sold to cocoa plantations in. Chocolate is the most popular candy on earth. We think of it as decadent, sensual, and romantic. But chocolate’s story isn’t all sunshine and sweetness. SEMISWEET: LIFE IN CHOCOLATE traces. ‘The Dark Side of Chocolate’ is a documentary about the continued allegations of trafficking of children and child labor in the international chocolate industry.
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 slavetrading 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 world’s 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, Hershey’s, 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 wouldn’t qualify), the industry fought back and finally agreed to a voluntary protocol to end abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by 2005.
The chocolate industry fought back. Ultimately, a compromise was reached to end child labor on Ivory Coast cocoa farms by 2005. In 2005 the cocoa industry failed to comply with the protocol’s terms, and a new deadline for 2008 was established. In 2008 the terms of the protocol were still not met, and yet another deadline for 2010 was set.
Almost a decade after the chocolate companies, concerned governments and specially foundations spent millions of dollars in an effort to eradicate child labor and trafficking in the international cocoa trade, has anything changed?
Miki Mistrati and U Roberto Romano launch a behind-the-scenes investigation and verify if these allegations of child labor in the chocolate industry are present today.
More than 70% of the world’s supply of cocoa comes from two countries nestled on the southern shore of West Africa: Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. There, whole communities are dedicated to growing the crop that is lucrative for governments and international traders, but brings below-poverty wages for the farmers who produce it. Low wages mean farmers cannot hire the labor needed to harvest the crop, and perpetuates the child trafficking and worst forms of child labor that have plagued the industry. Children are exposed to chemicals, long working hours, and the denial of a decent education. Low prices in the cocoa industry have left smallholder farmers with impoverished incomes and with no choice but to pull their children from school and have them help on the plantation. With low educational access and attendance, families in the cocoa sector are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty. Cocoa producers have little bargaining power against the few large multinational companies that control the supply chain and ultimately determine the livelihoods of farming families.
ILRF helped bring this problem to national attention more than a decade ago and is committed to bringing justice to cocoa farmers through public education, corporate campaigns, and engagement with partners organizing farmers on the ground.
Cocoa – A guide to trade practices is often referred to as ITC’s Cocoa Guide. The most recent version, from 2001, is still in demand.
The guide describes trade and industry practices, as well as regulations applying to cocoa. It traces customs procedures, systems and techniques used at each stage of the cocoa supply chain. It reviews trends in cocoa manufacturing and processing, cocoa organic farming, fair trade, sustainable production and environmental issues. It also provides a list of main sector-related trade and industry association and their websites.
The Cocoa Guide is available in English, French, Spanish and Russian. Many users of the Cocoa Guide have shown interest in ITC’s more comprehensive Coffee Guide. It is continuously updated at http://www.thecoffeeguide.org/ – in English, French and Spanish. The Coffee Guide’s extensive information on, for example, sustainability schemes (labels), climate change and coffee, futures, hedging and risk management are also relevant for cocoa.
Premiered Nov 9, 2018
Climate change is causing glaciers to melt in Switzerland. In the summer of 2018, a mudflow has hit the village of Bondo in Switzerland. Climate change is in full swing. Can we still avert this or is climate change already too advanced so that we simply have to live with it? Are the melting glaciers in Switzerland one of the many consequences of climate change?
Climate change creates melting glaciers in Switzerland. We must quickly get a grip on global warming. According to the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh this is because we cannot imagine that our children will live in an unlivable world. Our endless desire for things like cars, meat and luxury goods are the main causes of the climate crisis. ‘Everyone wants to be part of the good life’, says Ghosh. “We are like a turkey for Thanksgiving. We are getting nicely stuffed but one day the head goes off. ‘
A mudflow from a melting glacier was the summer of the Swiss village of Bondo. Eight people died and the village was uninhabitable for months. Yet many do not want to see the consequences of the climate crisis. According to Ghosh, eating no meat or not driving is not enough to break the vicious circle. He thinks it is of the utmost importance that we oblige our authorities to take draconian measures and, if necessary, enforce them. It is ill to place all responsibility with the individual.
An example of enforcing government responsibility is the famous ‘Climate case’ that environmental organization Urgenda with lawyer Roger Cox brought against the Dutch State. Many legal procedures are now taking place worldwide. For example, a Peruvian mountain guide Saul Luciano Lliuya, whose village is also threatened by a melting glacier, has filed a lawsuit against the German RWE. The energy giant with its many coal-fired plants is responsible for 0.5% of global CO2 emissions. The Peruvian Lliuya states that RWE is also responsible for 0.5% of the damage that his village experiences. A German judge agreed with him and declared his request valid. A climate story about how we can turn the tide just in time.
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Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
The links are listed here to be used in whatever manner they may be helpful in public information campaigns, course preparation, teaching, letter-writing, lectures, class presentations, policy discussions, article writing, civic or Congressional hearings and citizen action campaigns, etc. For further information on this blog see: About this weblog. and How to use this weblog.
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