SLAVE-FREE CHOCOLATE

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 SLAVERY AND CHOCOLATE

The first bite you take into your favorite chocolate bar is one of pure pleasure, but the fact that this product may have been made at the expense of thousands of enslaved children's lost childhoods takes the sweetness right out of it.

Two-thirds of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa, produced primarily on small farms located deep in the jungle. It is in these thick terrains that 284,000 children labor in what the U.S. Department of State considers the "worst forms of child labor" to produce cocoa, the main ingredient for chocolate.

Children on cocoa farms work long hours under horrific conditions that threaten their health and deprive them of the opportunity for education. Children are forced to apply dangerous pesticides and insecticides with little to no protection for themselves. They are also expected to perform other hazardous tasks, such as clearing underbrush with a machete, transporting excessively heavy loads, and using a machete to open cocoa pods.

Not every child working on a cocoa farm is a slave. Many of them work on family farms for their parents or other relatives. In such cases, poverty has forced farmers to make the difficult decision to keep their children out of school so that they can work.

But other children have been sold by human traffickers into slavery on cocoa farms. The traffickers lure children and their parents into their trap by promising a better life for the children, who live in poverty. Then they sell them into slavery.

FAIR TRADE CERTIFIED

I'm not asking you to stop buying chocolate. Farmers need the business. Instead, support Fair Trade Certified chocolate. Fair Trade Certified guarantees that the product you are paying for was not produced with slave labor. Chocolate manufacturers can earn a fair trade label when they are able to prove that the farms from which they purchase their beans pay workers a fair wage, prohibit child labor, and are independently monitored. Fair Trade Certified also requires certain ethical standards, such environmentally sustainable farming.

Fair Trade Certified ensures that the price of producion is covered so that farmers can pay their workers a fair wage. With sufficient wages, farmers are able to send their children to school, plan for their future, and improve their nutritional intake.

In addition, the prohibition of child labor on Fair Trade Certified farms helps eliminate the demand for trafficked children. Look for the Fair Trade Certified label on items you are purchasing and make a difference!

GETTING THE RIGHT STUFF

Visit www.transfairusa.org and type in your zip code at Where To Buy in order to find Fair Trade Certified products in your area. At this link, you can also locate stores that sell Fair Trade Certified coffee, tea, sugar, fruit, rice and flowers!

THE CHOCOLATE CHALLENGE

I ask you to consider meeting the following challenge:

• Pray with two or more people for the eradication of modern day slavery
• Buy a piece of Fair Trade Certified Chocolate
• Tell five people about Fair Trade Certified products

The chocolate industry will make changes when they see that consumers are serious.

The people with the dollar have the voice. You may not feel as though you have much, but we Americans live better than most of the people in the world. Because we can spend, we can speak up.

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." Proverbs 31:8-9

Helpful websites:

www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cocoa-campaign

www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/

www.stopthetraffik.org/getinvolved/act/chocolate/