Blood Chocolate
Olivia Schultz, Ana Vidakovic, Andrea Mann
Background
People around the world crave chocolate. Some people can't live without it. Due to the incredible demand for it, child labor has been introduced to industries like Hersheys and Nestle. These children are working so that they can help the family income for food and other necessities. These children are being told that they will be payed, but the it never comes. Harvesting the cocoa is difficult labor not fit for a kid. Abuse and death has been an unfortunate outcome.
Cause
Large candy companies have a significant demand for their chocolate. The fertile land of Africa is abundant in supply of cocoa. Therefore, the people/children in this area are being taken advantage of. The hardest part of making chocolate gets basically no pay. Even with this crisis, companies continue this evil because the demand is so high.
Location
Some common brands are made on 100% rainforest alliance certified farms. Places like Ivory Coast and Ghana contain this child labor for the chocolate industries.
Statistics
- Estimated a minimum of 15,000 child slaves in the cocoa production. Over 200,000 total.
- 64% of the children are less than 14 years old.
- Work on average 12-hour days.
- 40% of the children are girls.
- Only 33% have attended or are attending school.
Progress?
Many protest groups have been formed for this cause. People are not eating anything that comes from these cocoa farms. There are also groups made to raise money and help the children in need.
Help?
We didn't know about this issue until now. Like many others, we just don't know or love our sweets too much. Schools and news needs to make this a topic well known so we can as a whole destroy certain chocolate producing businesses.
Plans?
The most famous plan out right now is the Freedom Project. This plan is driven by Nestlè. Even Hersheys has put in $10 million into this organization to end child slavery and save the cocoa plantations in West Africa.