The darkish side of chocolate and child slavery. Today, what do these chocolate companies like Nestle, Mars, Hershey, Cadbury and others who produce their chocolate candy say about child slavery and trafficking in the international chocolate industry?
Is there Child Slavery in these chocolate bars that so many human beings love to eat today? Say it isn’t so. When a person eats chocolate or drinks hot chocolate on a cold winter day or sends chocolate gifts to someone they love, do they know that the chocolate that they love to eat and give to others with love and kindness in their heart is made using child slaves; do they know these innocent children were kidnapped from their families and sold into slavery.
Raising awareness concerning the slavery of kids and abuses that taint the overwhelming majority of chocolate merchandise, and to encourage and facilitate actions aimed at ending those abuses. This article is additionally dedicated to the children who’re victims of chocolate slavery and exploitation.
Welcome to the the darkish side of chocolate! The connection between chocolate candy and child cruelty and the slavery of children.
Hundreds of thousands of youngsters, 286,000 child slaves on the Ivory Coast alone; continue to work on cocoa plantations in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, according to a 2009 Tulane University research of the cocoa industry. Yet Mars, which makes Snickers and M&Ms had $30 billion in world gross sales in 2008 and Nestle’s profits over $65 billion in annual sales; Nestle, Mars, Hershey, Cadbury and more companies produce their blood chocolate products that a person eats everyday not knowing that these chocolate bars were produced with chid slavery. Kids are being kidnapped and sold to these plantations to harvest product for these greedy chocolate companies. Now, a person has to ask one self what is the difference between people who deal in child pornography or drug dealers who target children or companies who use child slavery.
The next time when a person eats a Hershey’s bar or bag of M&M’s, they should think about the child slaves in West Africa who’re toiling beneath a merciless sun or are locked up for the night, dreading another day of exhausting labor. But don’t take these words as fact, but learn the sad reality, from respected news organizations just like the BBC and Knight-Ridder and NGO’s like Save the Children and Global Exchange.
Child slavery is only one of the symptoms of the disease confronting all of mankind. Call it the profit system or the rule and love of money or capitalism (Greed). One on the seven deadly sins. Child slavery is on the increase on the continent of Africa.
“Being greedy, indecent, or immoral is just another way of worshiping idols. You can be sure that people who behave in this way will never be part of the kingdom that belongs to Christ and to God.” Ephesians 5:5 (CEV).
“Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed.” (Bhagavad-Gita, “Song of God”) The most toxic of these three are anger and greed. There is no fire like greed and no crime like hatred. In this world today, unfortunately there are too many people who are guilty of all three sins.
July 2005, International Labor Rights Fund filed suit against Nestle in Federal District Court on behalf of a class of children who were trafficked from Mali into the Ivory Coast and forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings. What was Nestle’s response to court questioning? “We are only buyers of a product.”
Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.” Luke 11:39
Testimonials from children that were freed.
“The beatings were a part of my life,” Aly Diabate, a freed slave, told reporters. “Anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa beans) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again.”
Brian Woods a film maker, has made films about some of the world’s worst human rights abuses. Brian tells of meeting Drissa, a young chid from Mali who had been forced to work on an Ivory Coast cocoa farm. “When Drissa took his shirt off, I had never seen anything like it. I had seen some pretty nasty things in my time but this was appalling. There wasn’t an inch of his body which wasn’t scarred.” This is an innocent child Brian Woods is talking about.
Buying cocoa from farms that employ such abusive child labor practices enables Hershey to keep its costs down and its profits up. In early 2010, the company reported a 54 percent jump in profits because of what it called “improved supply-chain efficiencies.” Such “efficiencies” allow Hershey’s CEO, David J. West, to make $8 million a year while unpaid children are forced to labor under cruel conditions on the farms growing the company’s cocoa. A 54 percent jump in Hershey’s profits because of improved supply-chain efficiencies equals $8 million a year for a CEO. A company that uses children as slaves to produce their products and only gets a 54% increase in production. A question, is that a good profit return on children slavery?
“If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.” Proverbs 21:13
A quote by Albert Einstein about greed; “Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.”
Is There Child Slavery in Your Chocolate? These children, usually 11-to-16-years-old but sometimes younger, are forced to do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week under hazardous working conditions. They are paid nothing, receive no education, are barely fed, are beaten regularly, and are often viciously beaten if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again!
“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 82:3-4
“He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” Proverbs 14:31
“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” (Jesus)
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