By Christian Parenti
The LOUD Project
(Fortune) — Outside the village of Sinikosson in southwestern Ivory Coast, along a trail tracing the edge of a muddy fishpond, Madi Ouedraogo sits on the ground picking up cocoa pods in one hand, hacking them open with a machete in the other and scooping the filmy white beans into plastic buckets. It is the middle of the school day, but Madi, who looks to be about 10, says his family can’t afford the fees to send him to the nearest school, five miles away. “I don’t like this work,” he says. “I would rather do something else. But I have to do this.”
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Sinikosson, accessible only by rutted jungle tracks, is a long way from the luxurious chocolate shops of New York and Paris. But it is here, on small West African farms like these, that 70 percent of the world’s cocoa beans are grown - 40 percent from just one country, Ivory Coast. It’s not only the landscape that is tough. Working and living conditions are brutal. Most villages lack electricity, running water, health clinics or schools. And to make ends meet, underage cocoa workers, like Madi and the two boys next to him, spend their days wielding machetes, handling pesticides and carrying heavy loads…………….. http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/24/news/international/chocolate_bittersweet.fortune/
Sinikosson, accessible only by rutted jungle tracks, is a long way from the luxurious chocolate shops of New York and Paris. But it is here, on small West African farms like these, that 70 percent of the world’s cocoa beans are grown - 40 percent from just one country, Ivory Coast. It’s not only the landscape that is tough. Working and living conditions are brutal. Most villages lack electricity, running water, health clinics or schools. And to make ends meet, underage cocoa workers, like Madi and the two boys next to him, spend their days wielding machetes, handling pesticides and carrying heavy loads…………….. http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/24/news/international/chocolate_bittersweet.fortune/
Facts
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70% of cocoa produced world wide comes from West Africa
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40% comes from the Ivory Coast (Cote D’Ivoire)
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It is estimated up to 12,000 children have been trafficked for cocoa in West Africa.
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It is estimated that in the West African nation of the Ivory Coast alone, more than 600,000 children work on cocoa fields
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Most of the Companies of the chocolate that we eat do not guarantee that their products are free of child slavery.
What should our response be? Should we boycott chocolate? What message should we get LOUD about? Should we be eating Fair Trade chocolate? I’ll be posting what I believe the answers to these questions are soon. Challenge for the day: Count how many products you have in your kitchen that contain cocoa and read the link to the article above
