Happy National Chocolate Day! Is your favorite brand made with child slave labor?
Chocolate is delicious and more often than not, has its origins in slave labor of poor children in West Africa.
As you enjoy chocolate today, and as you start making your Halloween candy purchases, keep in mind that Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa each year, and latest estimates found 2 million children engaged in hazardous work on cocoa farms in these two countries.
Fortunately, there is an ongoing, and updated list of chocolate companies that only use ethically grown cocoa where you can learn if the chocolate you are eating is connected to child slavery.
Chocolate is a delicious treat that countless Americans enjoy. But in West Africa, the world’s largest cocoa growing region, 60% of cocoa farmers earn less than $2 a day, the international poverty line. Millions of children work on cocoa farms instead of going to school or enjoying a childhood. Despite the growth of Fair Trade, as well as the enormous resources the cocoa industry has invested in combating this issue for the past decade, the number of children working in cocoa fields has not gone down. Source: greenamerica.org
Unfortunately, the most popular and well-known brands in the US are not on the ethically-sourced list, and regularly use…
