Happy Valentine's Day. You've probably already bought chocolates for your loved ones, and eaten some yourself. And you probably didn't give a thought to how it was connected to human rights, peace, and political stability in Africa. Maybe its time we start asking some questions about the chocolate industry.
Where does the chocolate come from? Who harvests it? Approximately 70% of cocoa is grown in West Africa; Ivory Coast is responsible for about 40% of that. In fact, the chocolate industry is central to the West African economy. There's a catch, though. The chocolate industry is, according to an article in today's LA Times, "a magnet for child slavery." Poor families sometimes sell their children as indentured servants to cocoa farmers. The children work in poor, often abusive, conditions. In 2002, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture reported that some 284,000 children worked in West Africa's chocolate industry. Of those children, 200,000 work in the Ivory Coast. Not all are slaves, some are paid and some work on family farms. The article also mentions that chocolate is similar to the diamond industry in that it helps fund political instability in some West African countries, particularly Ivory Coast.
The chocolate industry has made some efforts to certify cocoa producers who don't use child labor but such efforts have not been very successful. So what can we do this Valentine's Day to share our love with these children? As the article points out, boycotting chocolate would be useless since so much of the West African economy depends on it. We can, however, buy Fair Trade chocolate. Fair Trade certified confectioners pay their workers a fair wage and provide them with safer working conditions. Plan ahead for next Valentine's Day and make the day extra-special for your loved one by buying Fair Trade chocolate and improving the life of a child.
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