This Valentine's Day, Give Your Sweetie Fair Trade-Certified Treats

Many folks will surprise their sweethearts today with an assortment of chocolate goodies. While treats like Hershey's Chocolate Hearts may taste sweet, they often hide a cruel secret — child labor and exploitation.

As The Atlantic reports, the majority of the world's cacao — the bean from which chocolate bars are produced — is grown and harvested in Africa. One-third of the world's cocoa beans come from Cote d'Ivoire, while another 30 percent of the global supply originates in Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The rest comes from Central and South America. These countries' six million cocoa farmers churn out about three million tons of cocoa beans every, single year.

That steady stream of beans keeps major chocolate manufacturers like Hershey's in business. There's just one problem: Hershey's profits come at the cost of child labor, exploitation of impoverished farmers, human trafficking, and unfair labor practices.

The majority of the world's cocoa beans come from family farmers in Africa. Oftentimes these farms rely on child labor, preventing kids from attending school and exposing them to dangers like chemical pesticides and herbicides. According to the American Federation of Teachers, about 3.6 million children in West Africa work on cocoa farmers, some of whom were trafficked illegally. Child slavery is especially prevalent on Cote d'Ivoire cocoa farms, where there are about 15,000 kids subjected to slavery. It's a situation that has many referring to cocoa beans' final product as "blood chocolate."

These kinds of dangerous, unfair conditions are perpetuated by the incredibly low wages farmers receive for their cocoa beans. Like most commodities, the chocolate industry is dominated by a few major players. According to The Atlantic, the world's top 10 chocolate manufacturers are responsible for 40 percent of global chocolate sales. These companies have a chokehold on the chocolate industry, demanding a steady supply of beans at rock-bottom prices. Corporations like Hershey's rake in billions of dollars a year, while the most important part of the chocolate business — the farmers — make mere pittances.

Fair Trade certification aims to make the chocolate industry a whole lot sweeter. This third-party certification system ensures that cocoa beans come from farms that don't rely on forced or child labor. It also mandates that farmers must receive a fair wage for their product, preventing the kinds of extortion and exploitation that have become so prevalent in the chocolate industry.

Companies from Kraft to Nestle to Ben & Jerry's have made at least some kind of commitment to investigate where their cocoa comes from and work with certifiers to eliminate unfair labor practices in their supply chains. Hershey's, however, stubbornly refuses to embrace Fair Trade-certified cocoa despite boasting record profits this year. It's time that the company ditched the dark side of its chocolate empire. Sign International Labor Rights Forum's petition asking Hershey's to incorporate Fair Trade-certified cocoa into its supply chain.

Photo credit: Magic Madzik via Flickr