Today, children are exploited for our chocolate

Ten years ago the chocolate industry signed the “Harkin-Engel Protocol”, a promise to eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour (including trafficking and hazardous work) in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, where two thirds of the world’s cocoa is grown.
However, none of the Protocol’s six articles calling for action were fully implemented, and the required industry-wide change in the cocoa sector has not taken place. The promise still hasn’t been met.
An estimated 1.8 million children work on the small cocoa farms in these countries, growing and harvesting the core ingredient of the chocolate we eat. Many of these are working under what is know as the Worst Forms of Child Labour, which includes trafficking, slave-like conditions, and hazardous work.
Cocoa grows in pods on Cocoa trees. The pods are harvested by using machetes, and are sprayed regularly with insecticides. Kids as young as 11 and 12 years old work long days, sometimes 10 hours or more, doing this dangerous work, without any protective clothing, and with little to no access to medical care if they get sick or are injured. They are also forced to carry bags of cocoa pods, weighing up to 40 kilograms. Hardly suitable work for a 12 year old.
In the same period as the Harkin Engel Protocol has been in effect, from 2001 to 2011, the global revenue from cocoa products was an estimated USD 1 trillion. That’s $1.000.000.000.000. The cocoa industry therefore certainly has the financial means to tackle the problem.
Since the industry has not taken responsibility for carrying out the necessary reform from within, it is now necessary for governments to demand a minimum standard of compliance of companies and require due diligence in their supply chain.
Clear and strong legislation is urgently needed as the status quo is simply not acceptable: why should children toil, at the expense of their health, education and sometimes their lives, for an industry so immensely profitable?
The best remedy for these abuses is to send the children to school. To achieve that, it is necessary that companies have independent organizations checking their whole supply chain, that they tell the public each year what they’re doing to stop this child labour, and that governments install an independent oversight on progress.
10 Campaign is an informal worldwide coalition of major civil society organizations working in sustainable chocolate. It’s partners include STOP THE TRAFFIK, International Labor Rights Forum, World Vision Australia, Fairfood International, Stop Child Labour - School is the best workplace, Südwind Research Institute, Berne Declaration, FNV Bondgenoten and the Confédération Syndicale Burkinabé, as well as various individuals with extensive experience in sustainable cocoa.