A Not so Happy Easter
by Ben Bucca
November 2008
People often think of Easter time as a time to get together with friends and family to celebrate and eat good food. However, children living on the Ivory Coast, a small republic on the south coast of the western bulge of Africa, are not so lucky. Easter is the busiest time of the year for these kids and that means producing over 44% of the world’s chocolate in terrible working conditions for little to no pay. It’s a scary thought, and not something the average American thinks of during Easter time. But it’s something we must become more conscious of because these children deserve just as much of a chance as any child to live out their childhood instead of slaving away making sweets.
Child slave labor began when parents began selling their children into slavery to pay off their debts. The origins of what country this began in is unknown and it could be anywhere. In most cases, slaves would become the property of their master. Usually, it was the status of the mother in society that would determine if the child would become a slave. In most cases, slaves could earn their freedom by working hard and paying off their master. However, the economy of the Ivory Coast is so bad that most masters are actually in debt to their slaves.
Slavery has been prevalent in the Ivory Coast ever since the country has been mired in a civil war since a 1999 coup, leaving the country split between the government and the New Forces. In the tenuous cease-fire that has developed, many countries, including the United Kingdom, have closed their embassies due to a wave of violence targeted at Europeans, who dominated the economy as late as 1995. Since there is no government to try and stop it, slavery has been on the rise since 2003. Violence aimed at foreigners prevents any inspection agency from getting in to determine how prevalent slavery is.
But what does this all have to do with cocoa and chocolate? Well cocoa is the main export of the Ivory Coast. Major corporations such as Hersheys, Nestle, and Mars buy from middle men, such as ADM and Cargill, who directly buy cocoa beans from largely impoverished West African farmers, each usually owning less than 12 acres of land. Thus, it is hard to determine whether large corporations have a hand in supporting child slave labor since they go through so many middle companies in order to acquire their cocoa. Since farms are so small, owners usually just try and pass their slaves off as family members to fool inspectors. There is no way of identifying these children so farm owners normally get away with it.
The conditions that these children are forced to work in are horrendous and deplorable. They are routinely beaten, fed poorly and sometimes promised miniscule wages that rarely materialize. Without strength or precision, they are forced to wield adult-sized machetes, and spray pesticides without protection of any kind. They work sun up to sun down, 12 to 15 hours a day, often times being locked up at night in tiny huts to prevent their running away. It’s not uncommon to find children as young as 9 years old working in these types of conditions.
Many organizations have been started to try and reduce the number of child slave laborers. One of these coalitions, called Stop the Traffik, wants the manufacturers to declare chocolate “traffik-free” so consumers can be sure they are not supporting child slave labor. Often times, parents are tricked into selling their children into slavery, thinking that their children will be living on a nice farm sending back money monthly. They don’t realize they are sending their kids into a life of hard labor.
The UN General Assembly defined human trafficking as “the illegal and clandestine movement of persons across national and international borders.” Most people that are alive in the 21st century do not know that it still exists however reports claim that it is higher than ever. The UN says that around 700,000 women and children are trafficked around the world each year which brings in a yearly profit of around 7 billion dollars.
Most of the factors that cause child slave labor in the Ivory Coast are well known. The Ivory Coast has been dependent on exporting goods for hundreds of years. The country was constantly focusing on an outward form of development. The Europeans owned the first plantations up until the First World War when the country gained its independence. By the latter part of the 1970’s though, cocoa supplanted coffee as the major commodity when a cocoa boom occurred as the government encouraged cultivation by offering various price incentives. The growing of cocoa has been so heavily emphasized that now so many farmers are solely dependent on it to make a living. The Culture of the Ivorian people also plays a factor in child slave labor. It is not looked negatively upon children working as young as 5 years old. School is very expensive so work is usually the only option left.
The effects on children sold into slave labor are both physically and mentally demanding. Not only do they suffer from physical scars, they suffer from emotional scars. Psychologists say that they are very emotionally isolated and they have trouble interacting with other people because they are very afraid. If they do happen to escape, they have a lot of trouble readjusting to family life.
It’s a shame that this information only comes up once a year on a holiday. The whole idea behind it just sounds very outdated but it is as prevalent as ever. However, many companies have begun cracking down on inspections and signing contracts to use traffik-free cocoa. It’s a very daunting task to try and eliminate, as farms are very hard to detect as being farms that house child slave laborers, but as long as information is constantly present and brought forth, we’re one step closer to solving the problem.
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