Tell Mars, Cargill, and Hershey to Stop Using "Blood Chocolate"

Last week I wrote about a fresh commitment from European Union members and several other countries of the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) to make the $10 billion abuse-ridden cocoa industry more sustainable and fair to workers (the U.S. was still conspicuously absent from this organization). Today comes news that this agreement will largely be wishful thinking until the United States, the largest consumer of cocoa, signs on to such agreements or guarantees its chocolate as Fair Trade.

The U.S. ambassador to Ghana recently announced that since January, the U.S. has been importing much more cocoa than ever thanks to two new processing facilities built by ADM and Cargill, one of the top five global processors of cocoa beans. U.S. cocoa imports are expected to increase, too, as American businesses are busting down the door asking for new contracts in the impoverished country. In the past year, there's been 100-to-200 percent more requests from Americans seeking to do business in Ghana, the second-largest producer of cocoa after the Ivory Coast.

This means small farmers in Ghana, which along with the Ivory Coast produce about 60 percent of the world's chocolate, will be pushed to produce more cocoa. Unless they are protected under Fair Trade contracts, rampant exploitation and slavery of workers will most likely continue. About 3.6 million West African children work on cocoa farms, many of whom make very little to no pay while under horrific conditions, according to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). This dire situation has led some to refer to cocoa produced in these regions as "blood chocolate." According to a January report by the International Labor Rights Forum, chocolate companies like Mars and Cargill, which process 400,000 tons of cocoa each year, "have been able to control initiatives meant to eliminate forced, child and trafficked labor in West Africa’s cocoa industry." More cocoa corporation consolidation has only further pressured farmers to keep costs low. Efforts by the U.S. government and labor rights groups have largely failed to improve conditions, according to a 2009 Tulane University study.

What have American chocolate companies like Hershey's and Mars, the world's largest chocolate manufacturers, done to help? They've established certain initiatives and their own sustainable guidelines, but after nine years of such self-defined and self-monitored (read: unregulated) initiatives, little has changed. British companies Nestle UK and Cadbury have justly adopted Fair Trade certification for their chocolate, and deserve our applause. Sign our petition telling U.S. candy companies that they need to do the same.

Photo credit: Zapstratosphere via Flickr