14 February 2006

Chocolate comes into its own on Valentine’s Day as a symbol of love and affection, but for millions of children it represents hard labour, terrible working conditions and forced separation from their families and loved ones.

Fair trade organisation Trade Aid is channelling love drunk New Zealanders and the New Zealand Government to think twice before importing chocolate products knowingly made with child labour and slavery.  

There are approximately 1.5 million cocoa farms in West Africa with the Ivory Coast producing 43% of the world's supply.
According to UNICEF, thousands of children between the ages of nine and twelve are trafficked yearly in West and Central Africa. Media reports have unveiled stories about boys tricked or sold into slavery to work on cocoa plantations. The chocolate industry has acknowledged that child slaves are harvesting cocoa in the Ivory Coast yet plans to endorse a new protocol to alleviate child labour in the cocoa industry by the middle of last year have fallen along the wayside.

Last week a lawsuit filed against cocoa giants Nestle, Cargill, and Archer Daniels-Midland for allowing forced child labour to be used on their West African cocoa farms had its first hearing in California.

The lawsuit was filed by the United States’ International Labor Rights Fund and a civil rights firm on behalf of a group of Malian children who were trafficked from Mali to the Ivory Coast and forced to work 12- to 14-hour days with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings. A ruling is expected in two months time.

In the meantime Trade Aid is asking why a civilised country in the 21st century is condoning practices that were outlawed in the 19th century. While we have laws to protect our children in this country, Trade Aid says that buying goods made by forced child labour in another country is still an endorsement of those practices. Trade Aid is looking to Parliament to make such  practices illegal. In the meantime it is promoting its fair trade chocolate made from cocoa from Ghana where no child slavery is used and farmers receive a fair wage for their work.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT TRADE AID MANAGER GEOFF WHITE on (03) 385 3535 or 021 800 515