JOHANNESBURG - some of the cocoa in this Valentine's day chocolate probably came from a west African country where the man still Office will continue in power for a decade. And activists say that might think consumers twice if you knew unpaid 5 year olds helped produce it.
This year human rights defenders are the world's largest producer the political crisis in Cote d'Ivoire, cocoa, to improve your working practices force utilization add momentum to a continuous campaign of worldwide chocolatiers.
Supporters internationally recognized winner of Cote d'Ivoire of election a cocoa moved ban, in the effort, the established market leader of the United Nations says the November elections to strangle lost Laurent Gbagbo.
"It is clear that the taxes that come from cocoa go directly to hold Gbagbo to power." That is why we called for a ban on exports and it seems to be working, said Patrick Achi, spokesman for international recognized winners Alassane Ouattara, now trying to lead the country out of a hotel.
Years by the "fair trade" consumers already campaigns have chocolate manufacturer agreements to help cocoa supply chain to clean up log forced. But little changed in the ten years since the U.S. Congress passed the Harkin Engel Protocol marketed in the United States introduce "no child slavery" label for chocolate.
Some 1.8 million children aged 5 to 17 work on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana produced according to the fourth annual report from Tulane University on behalf of the U.S. Department of labor to monitor progress in the Protocol.
The report says 40 percent of 820,000 children in cocoa in Cote d'Ivoire works are enrolled in school, and paid only about 5% of the Ivorian children for your work.
"These companies incredible profits are preserved during the farmers often really getting pennies", said Emira Woods, Co-Director of foreign policy in focus at the Institute for policy studies, Washington-based think tank.
Campaigns recently have begun, targeting the Hershey Company, because the only major chocolate manufacturers in the world, a commitment to certified cocoa use it little, say activists. Hershey's, but says it is working to improve life in local communities.
"Our focus is on-the-ground programs, to promote sustainable livelihoods in West Africa," said Hershey's spokesman Kirk Saville. "Hershey's support for cocoa communities goes back more than 50 years." "We have helped more productive farming practices that build educational and community resources to develop and to eliminate exploitative labor practices."
But the Tulane University report on child labor on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast and Ghana found achieved chocolatiers, less than 4 percent of the cocoa growing communities in Cote d'Ivoire and less than 14 percent of the communities in Ghana.
"Industry far more invested in programs in Ghana where the worst cases of abuse are less common than in the Ivory Coast," said Timothy Newman, campaign Director of the Washington D.C.-based international labor rights forum.
Newman said children from neighbouring countries Mali and Burkina Faso to Ivorian farms, victims of trafficking are where 40 percent of the world's cocoa.
Ivorian Government statistics show that more than 37,000 children are forced to work according to the U.N. International Labor Organization Alexandre Soho, senior program officer for Africa on the Elimination of child labour.
The industry says it more than a cocoa of certification system has spent $75 million to support the implementation. However, the Tulane study found, local only $5.5 million between 2001 and 2009 and that those in the Ivory Coast only $1.2 million from the industry.
Activists argue that the answer is simple: pay farmers more and you can afford their children to school instead of sending to work. Most children are small family plots, work place, often dangerous tools such as machete wielding and use of dangerous substances such as insecticides.
But critics say that chocolate boycott only hurts farmers and their families who try to earn a living, even if wages not "fair trade" ones.
"The problem from the beginning was that chocolates were hidden large companies behind the Harkin Engel Protocol an entirely voluntary agreement with the is no enforcement mechanism." As a result, you could continuously drag their feet in the responsibility for labor rights violations in your own cocoa supply chains, "said Newman."
"Many of the initiatives that have developed the critical underlying issues within this process never addressed, the serious labor rights abuses as makes low prices leading to cocoa farmers for beans and lack of negotiations, which have small farmers in the global chocolate supply chain paid." "These problems continue to fuel abuse."
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