When you were in middle school, this was the season when you shared all the information about trick-or-treating with your best friends. You might have figured out which house on the street gives out an entire chocolate bar rather than a small piece, but have you ever wondered where they actually come from?
Chocolates are made of cocoa beans. The Latin word for cocoa, Theobroma, means "food of the gods." Cocoa beans have been consumed by humans for about 2,000 years now. Because they need the right temperature, soil, and humidity, they can only grow in countries that are within 10-15 degrees from the either side of the equator including some countries from Latin America, West Africa, and Asia. Western African countries, mostly Ghana and the Ivory Coast, supply more than 70 percent of the world’s cocoa today.
While the companies who process the beans into products we see in supermarkets continue to increase their profits, the cacao farmers remain working in poverty. According to Cocoa Barometer 2015, the average cocoa farmer in Ivory Coast earnsonly 50 cents a day. This poverty experienced by the farmers led to exploitation such as forced adult labor, the use of child trafficking, and child slavery.
Some of the children who harvest cacao beans were kidnapped or sold by their family. They don't get paid, don't get to go to school, are working with dangerous machines, and are exposed to chemicals. Many of them have no ideawhat chocolate tastes like.
Unfortunately, this is not a rare situation; most of the chocolate you consume was produced, at least in part, using child slavery.
The chocolate companies have the power to end this by paying the farmers a fair wage, but many of them don't because the price of the product will go up if they have to pay the farmers more, and it is difficult to market expensive chocolate.
There are some companies that are Fair Trade Certified. Those companies promote fair labor practices by having a direct relationship with the farmers and give them a fair wage.
To avoid child slavery in your chocolate, look for the fair trade label. Don't support child slavery for cheaper chocolate. Chocolate taste way better when you know you are doing the right thing.