Out of the mouths of babes. I was nothing less than awed by Matt’s straightforward grasp of this complex tragedy.
In a nutshell, half the world’s cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast, where thousands of children harvest beans for scant pay. It gets worse: Many of the children are slaves, sold by their desperately impoverished parents to equally poor farmers.
Every major American chocolate manufacturer relies on cocoa from the Ivory Coast due to its low cost. But at what cost?
In 2001, Congress pressured chocolate makers to stop profiting from forced child labor--through, ahem, self-regulation. Five years later, virtually nothing has changed.
A starting point would be to pay farmers a decent price, lifting the curse of hopeless poverty. Obviously, that would mean charging consumers more for candy bars, cake mixes and ice cream.
Meanwhile, concerned chocoholics can munch goodies marketed by a host of small manufacturers that strictly do business with slave-free countries. For more information, go to the Websites savethechildren.org and globalexchange.org.
I’m speaking on behalf of Matt. This was his idea—not mine.
