Child slavery in West Africa!
HELP! you need to help stop child slavery in West Africa
The horrors of child slavery in Africa's cacao industry.
Katie T.
Cacao farmers are using children as slaves and the effects are very severe.
Unfortunately, the cocoa sector in this region is also afflicted with a severe child labor problem. In 2009, the U.S. Department of State estimated that there were more than 109,000 children working in the “worst forms of child labor” in Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa industry, and about 10 percent of those were victims of human trafficking or forced labor. Children who work on cocoa plantations are unavoidably exposed to certain hazards, including dangerous tools, dust, flames or smoke, hazardous chemicals, and/or physically demanding labor such as carrying heavy loads or spending many hours in the sun. As a result of over 109,000 being in the worst child labor it gets very violent.
Stopping child slavery
Cases often involve acts of physical violence, such as being whipped for working slowly or trying to escape. Reporters have also documented cases where children and adults were locked in at night to prevent them from escaping. Former cocoa slave Aly Diabate told reporters, “The beatings were a part of my life. I had seen others who tried to escape. When they tried, they were severely beaten.”:Drissa, a recently freed slave who had never even tasted chocolate, experienced similar circumstances. When asked what he would tell people who eat chocolate made from slave labor, he replied that they enjoyed something that he suffered to make, adding, “When people eat chocolate, they are eating my flesh.”
The different organizations
We need to join some of the organization that help stop child slavery in West Africa.
Please only buy chocolate that is vegan and does not support the worst forms of child labor, including slavery.F.E.P. works to advance the rights of farm workers by supporting corporate, legislative, and regulatory changes. We have also organized school supply drives for the children of farm workers, as well as food drives.In addition, we are working to get corporations to be transparent about where they source their cacao.
All of the color on this map is where the child slavery happens.
Consequences
These children don’t deserve this we need to help stop child slavery in West Africa.
They describe how they were whipped, beaten and forced to work for 14 hours a day before retiring to dank, dark rooms without windows to rest.consumers play an essential role in diminishing the food industry’s injustices. Child slavery on cocoa farms is a difficult issue to fully address because the most serious abuses take place across the world; however, that does not mean our responsibility is reduced, since chocolate is a luxury and not a necessity like fruits and vegetables.
Child trafficking in the cocoa sector is considerably difficult to identify, but there is no doubt that the problem continues to damage children’s lives. The scope of the trafficking problem must be better identified and remediation programs, whether through the government or civil society, must be improved.
Companies along the cocoa supply chain have benefited in one way or another from the free labor of trafficked children.