Petition: Demand Chocolate Companies Stop Using Child Slavery

While they claim otherwise, major chocolate producers such as Hershey’s, Mars, and Nestle continue to use dangerous and exploitative child labor. It is more important than ever that we demand these highly profitable companies stop relying on child slavery to make their chocolate. All child labor should be outlawed, but we know that cocoa production is one of the most dangerous forms of child labor.

According to Food is Power, child labor has been found on cocoa farms in “Cameroon, Guinea, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, although since most of Western Africa’s cocoa is grown in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the majority of child labor cases have been documented in those two countries.” While working on cocoa farms, young children are exposed to dozens of different toxic pesticides and expected to move hundreds of pounds of bean pods, as well as use machetes and other dangerous equipment. Often, they are expected to start work at sunrise and work late into the evening in these horrific conditions.

Source: Update Ring/Youtube

Eight children who claim they were used as slave labor on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast have launched legal action against some of these major chocolate companies. Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey, and Mondelēz have been named defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by the human rights firm International Rights Advocates (IRA) on behalf of these eight children. These multi-national cocoa companies are being accused of aiding and abetting the illegal enslavement of thousands of children on cocoa farms in their supply chains.

In a 2020 study, it was estimated that “1.56 million child laborers were involved in cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana during the 2018-19 growing season.” Many of these exploited children are forced into this work because of poverty and, as a result, are not able to continue with their education or see their family for long periods. Sign this petition to demand that corporations like Hershey’s, Mars, and Nestlé end their use of child labor and produce chocolate ethically!

To continue speaking up, sign these other petitions as well:

• Investigate Sexual Harassment in Morocco’s Education System!
• Protect Voting Rights

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