HERSHEY
Who knew hershey sweets where not so sweet
Hersey
In 2000 Hershey was accused get their cocoa beans from a child labor cocoa farm in west Africa. An estimate of 1.8 million children work on west African cocoa farms. 40% of the children 5 to 17 haven't even been inside a school. Hershey makes billion more dollars every year because of these kids, yet only 15% are are paid an wages. Global groups came together to create raising The Bar campaign. In 2006 they started to put pressure on Hershey to stop using child labor. Hershey decided to do nothing about it so the campaign made a big move and announced to Hershey that if they didn't stop using child labor they were going to play a commercial on the Jumbotron at the Super Bowl showing people how Hershey uses child labor. Hershey offered that they would do fair trade chocolate with their bliss line but the bliss line is one a little fraction of the company's business. However, food markets announced to Hershey that they we not going to sell Hershey chocolates any more until they agreed to use fair trade chocolate. That seemed to have crossed the line for Hershey because they final agreed to use certified fair trade chocolate for all of their chocolate products by 2020.
Abdule
Abdule is a child slave who has been picked up by a stranger to work in the cocoa farm. He earns no money for his work just food and torn clothes. He said he wishes that he could not go to work but go to school to have a better life. He also says he has never eaten chocolate and doesn't the know what the cocoa beans are used for.
Children working in coco bean farm
7 year old working in farm
Child prouducing Hershey chocolate
Cocoa bean pile
Slavery in Hershey's Chocolate
Bibliography
Hershey's Trust: Stop Exploiting Children to Grow Cocoa Beans." Change.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.
Hershey Slave Labor Will End With Switch to Fair Trade Cocoa." TakePart. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.
What can you do to help?
The first thing you can do to help is to send Hershey a letter telling them how you feel about them using child labor. Secondly, aware other people about the problem. I'm sure they would love to helps top labor. Next, you can come up with ideas to force Hershey to make them make all there prouducts are child labor free. Lastly, you can just choose not to buy Hershey chocolate but you also need to consider if you stop the slaves won't get paid.