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Is
There Slavery In Your Chocolate?
John
Robbins
Chocolate. The very word conjures feelings of pleasure, sensuality,
and the richness of life. The scientific name of the tree from whose
beans we make chocolate, likewise bespeaks the depth of feeling
human beings have always had for chocolate. It is Theobroma cacao
L. The name of the genus, Theobroma, comes from two Greek
words: theos, meaning gods, and broma, meaning foods. Thus,
literally, "food of the Gods."
Chocolate has a remarkable history. When Cortez and his conquistadors
first encountered the Aztecs and met the last Aztec emperor, Montezuma,
they were amazed to find a thriving metropolis with more than one
million residents, making it several times larger than the biggest
city in Europe at the time. Cortez and his band were confronting
a culture and an ecosystem that was wildly strange to them. Yet
what they found most astonishing, according to their reports, was
the fact that Montezuma's royal coffers were overflowing, not with
gold, but with cocoa beans. Here, gold was used primarily for architectural
and artistic beauty and had only secondary monetary value. The coin
of the realm in pre-conquest Mexico was not gold, it was cocoa beans.
When Cortez arrived in the Aztec capital, Montezuma's coffers held
more than 9,000 tons of cocoa beans.
Since these beans were money, they were roasted and eaten only
by the wealthiest of citizens, only by those who, literally, had
"money to burn." According to the reports of the conquistador's,
Montezuma himself drank only cocoa potions, and this from golden
goblets which were given to the poor after a single use. This may
have been one of the most extreme examples of conspicuous consumption
in history - the eating of money itself.
Today we know that cacao, cocoa and chocolate are the richest known
sources of a little-known substance called theobromine, a close
chemical relative of caffeine. Theobromine, like caffeine, and also
like the asthma drug theophylline, belong to the chemical group
known as xanthine alkaloids. Chocolate products contain some caffeine,
but not nearly enough to explain the attractions, fascinations,
addictions, and effects of chocolate. Chocolate addiction may really
be theobromine addiction.
Slavery Lurking Behind The Sweetness
Most of us, though, aren't all that concerned with the history
or chemistry of chocolate. When it comes down to it, frankly, we
are content so long as the market shelves remain well stocked with
affordable tins of cocoa and bars of chocolate candy.
Or at least that's how it was in the United States until the summer
of 2001. For then the Knight Ridder Newspapers across the country
ran a series of investigative articles that revealed a very dark
side to our chocolate consumption. In riveting detail, the series
profiled young boys who were tricked into slavery, or sold as slaves,
to Ivory Coast cocoa farmers. Ivory Coast, located on the southern
coast of West Africa, is by far the world's largest supplier of
cocoa beans, providing 43% of the world's supply. There are 600,000
cocoa farms in Ivory Coast which together account for one-third
of the nation's entire economy.
An investigative report by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC)
in 2000 indicated the size of the problem. According to the BBC,
hundreds of thousands of children are being purchased from their
parents for a pittance, or in some cases outright stolen, and then
shipped to the Ivory Coast, where they are sold as slaves to cocoa
farms. These children typically come from countries such as Mali,
Burkina Faso, and Togo. Destitute parents in these poverty-stricken
lands sell their children to traffickers believing that they will
find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send some
of their earnings home. But that's not what happens. These children,
usually 12-to-14-years-old but sometimes younger, are forced to
do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week. They are paid nothing,
are barely fed, are beaten regularly, and are often viciously beaten
if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again.
"The beatings were a part of my life," Aly Diabate, a
freed slave, told reporters. "Anytime they loaded you with
bags (of cocoa beans) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped
you. Instead they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again."
Brian Woods and Kate Blewett are ground-breaking film-makers who
made history when they went undercover in China eight years ago
to make a documentary which shook the world - "The Dying Rooms"
- about the hideous conditions in Chinese state orphanages. Recently,
they made a film about the use of child slaves in African cocoa
fields. "It isn't the slavery we are all familiar with and
which most of us imagine was abolished decades ago," says Brian
Woods. "Back then, a slave owner could produce documents to
prove ownership. Now, it's a secretive trade which leaves behind
little evidence. Modern slaves are cheap and disposable. They have
three things in common with their ancestors. They aren't paid, they
are kept working by violence or the threat of it, and they are not
free to leave."
Blewett and Woods tell of meeting Drissa, a young man from Mali
who had been tricked into working on an Ivory coast cocoa farm.
"When Drissa took his shirt off, I had never seen anything
like it. I had seen some pretty nasty things in my time but this
was appalling. There wasn't an inch of his body which wasn't scarred."
Slavery Past And Present
The ownership of one human being by another is illegal in Ivory
Coast, as it is in every other country in the world today. But that
doesn't mean slavery has ceased to exist. Rather, it has simply
changed its form.
In times past, we had slaveowners. Now we have slaveholders. In
both cases, the slave is forced to work by violence or the threat
of violence, paid nothing, given only that which keeps him or her
able to continue to work, is not free to leave, and can be killed
without significant legal consequence. In many cases, nonownership
turns out to be in the financial interest of slaveholders, who now
reap all the benefits of ownership without the obligations and legal
responsibilities.
Kevin Bales is author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the
Global Economy, and director of Free The Slaves, an American branch
of Anti-Slavery International. He points out that one of the economic
drawbacks of the old slavery was the cost of maintaining slaves
who were too young or too old to work. Children rarely brought in
more than they cost until the age of ten or twelve, though they
were put to work as early as possible. Slavery was profitable, but
the profitability was diminished by the cost of keeping infants,
small children, and unproductive old people. The new slavery avoids
this extra cost and so increases its profits.
In the United States, the old slavery consisted primarily of bringing
people against their will from Africa. This represented a significant
financial investment. Bales says that before the Civil War, the
cost to purchase the average slave amounted to the equivalent of
$50,000 (in today's dollars). Currently, though, enslaved people
are bought and sold in the world's most destitute nations for only
$50 or $100. The result is that they tend to be treated as disposable.
Slaves today are so cheap that they're not even seen as a capital
investment anymore. Unlike slaveowners, slaveholders don't have
to take care of their slaves. They can just use them up, in the
cocoa fields for example, and then throw them away.
Pressure For Change
As publicity about the use of child slaves in the chocolate industry
mounted in the summer and fall of 2001, so did pressure on the chocolate
manufacturers. Chocolate is a symbol of sweetness and innocence,
but Western chocolate consumers know there is nothing sweet and
nothing innocent about slavery.
On June 28, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 291-115
to look into setting up a labeling system so consumers could be
assured no slave labor was used in the production of their chocolate.
Unhappy with this turn of events, the U.S. chocolate industry and
its allies mounted an intense lobbying effort to fight off legislation
that would require "slave free" labels for their products.
The Chocolate Manufacturer's Association, a trade group that represents
U.S. chocolate producers, hired two former Senate majority leaders
- Bob Dole, a Republican, and George Mitchell, a Democrat - to lobby
lawmakers on its behalf.
"A 'slave free' label would hurt the people it is intended
to help" because it would lead to a boycott of all Ivory Coast
cocoa, said Susan Smith, a spokeswoman for the Chocolate Manufacturer's
Association. She pointed out that no producer using Ivory Coast
cocoa could possibly state that none of its chocolate was produced
by child slavery. Slave-picked beans are mixed together with others
harvested by free field hands.
For a long time, many major chocolate makers have insisted that
they bear no responsibility for the problem, since they don't own
the cocoa farms. But pressure on the industry was mounting. The
legislation to address child slavery in West Africa that had passed
in the House (sponsored by Representative Eliot Engel) was by now
almost certain to pass in the Senate (where it was sponsored by
Senator Tom Harkin). On October 1, 2001, the chocolate industry
announced a four-year plan to eventually eliminate child slavery
in cocoa-producing nations, and particularly West Africa, where
most of the world's chocolate is grown. If all went according to
the plan, called the "Harkin-Engel Protocol," the "worst
forms of child labor" - including slavery - would no longer
be used to produce chocolate and cocoa by 2005.
Larry Graham, president of the Chocolate Manufacturer's Association,
said "the industry has changed, permanently and forever."
The agreement was signed by the manufacturer's association and the
World Cocoa Foundation; as well as chocolate producers Hershey's,
M&M Mars, Nestle and World's Finest Chocolate; and the cocoa
processors Blommer Chocolate, Guittard Chocolate, Barry Callebaut
and Archer Daniels Midland. It was endorsed by a wide variety of
groups including the government of Ivory Coast, the International
Labor Organization's child labor office, the anti-slavery group
Free the Slaves, the Child Labor Coalition, the International Cocoa
Organization (which represents cocoa growing countries), and the
National Consumer League.
The six-point protocol commits the chocolate industry to work with
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the International Labor
Organization in monitoring and remedying abusive forms of child
labor used in growing and processing cocoa beans. A series of deadlines
is part of the plan. For example, an independent monitoring and
public reporting system is to be in place by May, 2002. Industry-wide
voluntary standards of public certification are to be in place by
July 1, 2005.
In addition, the chocolate companies agreed to fund a joint international
foundation, run by a board comprised of industry and NGO representatives,
to oversee and sustain efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child
labor in the industry. Plus, the agreement provides for a formal
advisory group to investigate child labor practices in West Africa,
and a commitment by the chocolate companies to "identify positive
development alternatives for the children" who might be affected.
It is clear that the recent public and political awareness of slavery
in cocoa production has moved both the government and chocolate
industry to action. We still have a long way to go, but progress
is being made for the first time in years.
Whose Chocolate Is Made With Slavery, And Whose Is Made Without?
Even with the progress represented by the chocolate industry's
plan, however, it will nevertheless take years for chocolate products
to be "slave-free." Is there any way for chocolate consumers
to know today that they are not consuming products made with child
slavery?
A 2001 inquiry into the cocoa sources used by 200 major chocolate
manufacturers found significant differences between companies.
The $13 billion U.S. chocolate industry is heavily dominated by
just two firms - Hershey's and M&M Mars - who control two-thirds
of the market. Unfortunately, both of these companies fall into
the category of those companies who use large amounts of Ivory Coast
cocoa, and whose products are almost certainly produced in part
by slavery.
Hershey Foods Corp., the nation's largest chocolate-maker, says
it is "shocked" and "deeply concerned" that
its products, such as Hershey's Kisses, Nuggets, Hershey chocolate
bars and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, may be made with cocoa produced
by child slaves. The company, which has a long history of involvement
with children, says it is deeply embarrassed by revelations of indirect
involvement with child slavery. (Hershey Foods, which has a market
capitalization on Wall Street of $8.4 billion, is affiliated with
a school for orphaned and disadvantaged children, established in
1909 by company founder Milton S. Hershey and his wife Catherine.)
M&M Mars and Hershey Foods Corp. are not alone. Other companies
whose chocolate is almost certainly tainted with child slavery include:
ADM Cocoa, Ben & Jerry's, Cadbury Ltd., Chocolates by Bernard
Callebaut, Fowler's Chocolate, Godiva, Guittard Chocolate Company,
Kraft, Nestle, See's Candies, The Chocolate Vault, and Toblerone.
While most of these companies have issued condemnations of slavery,
and expressed a great deal of moral outrage that it exists in the
industry, they each have acknowledged that they use Ivory Coast
cocoa and so have no grounds to ensure consumers that their products
are slavery-free.
Companies like Mars, Hershey, and Nestle often say that there is
no way they can control the labor practices of their suppliers.
But there are other chocolate companies who manage to do so, and
it would seem that if the bigger companies really wanted to reform
problems in the supply chain, they have the power and ability to
do so.
There are in fact many chocolate companies who only use cocoa that
has definitively not been produced with slave labor. These companies
include Clif Bar, Cloud Nine, Dagoba Organic Chocolate, Denman Island
Chocolate, Gardners Candies, Green and Black's, Kailua Candy Company,
Koppers Chocolate, L.A. Burdick Chocolates, Montezuma's Chocolates,
Newman's Own Organics, Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company, Rapunzel Pure
Organics, and The Endangered Species Chocolate Company.
At present, no organic cocoa beans are coming from Ivory Coast,
so organic chocolate is unlikely to be tainted by slavery. Newman's
Own Organics is one of the largest of the slavery-free companies.
The company's chocolate is purchased through the Organic Commodity
Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It comes from Costa Rica where
the farms are closely monitored.
Some companies go further and buy only Fair Trade chocolate. In
the early 1990s, Rapunzel initiated a "Hand in Hand" program
called Eco-Trade - Fair Trade and Ecology. Strict guidelines and
commitments must be maintained by all Rapunzel's partners in buying,
selling, trading, growing and processing commodities in developing
countries. Guaranteed fair pricing, long term trade relationships,
living wages, and no child labor are just a few of the criteria.
The company's cocoa comes from cooperatives in Bolivia and the Dominican
Republic. Rapunzel's program is one of the most effective means
of positive change for the lives of farmers and their families worldwide.
The company's donations have built a school in the Dominican Republic,
an orphanage in Brazil, and provided major support for organic farmers
in Bolivia.
Similarly, Cloud Nine has organized 150 grower families into a
certified organic cooperative, and has committed to purchasing cocoa
from them year-round at over-market organic prices.
Likewise, The Endangered Species Chocolate company only purchases
cocoa through the Fair Trade Initiative. In supporting smaller farm
co-operatives, the company says "we encourage the indigenous
people to harvest what is naturally grown in the area rather than
clear-cutting the rainforest to make way for more destructive uses
of land."
According to Frederick Schilling of the Dagoba Organic Chocolate
company, "By being paid a premium price, these farming communities
can and are developing their communities by their own means and
terms; often times building schools for their children."
Coffee
Although it is chocolate that has gotten the most publicity of
late, chocolate isn't the only American staple produced by slaves.
Some coffee beans are also tainted by slavery. In addition to producing
nearly half of the world's cocoa, Ivory Coast is the world's fourth-largest
grower of Robusta coffee. Robusta beans are used for espresso and
instant coffees. They are also blended with milder Arabica beans
to make ground coffees.
Often, coffee and cocoa are grown together on the same farm. The
tall cacao trees shade the shorter coffee bushes. On some Ivory
Coast farms, child slaves harvest coffee beans as well as the cacao
pods that yield cocoa beans. More than 7,000 tons of Ivory Coast
coffee arrives in the U.S. each year.
As with chocolate, coffee beans picked by slaves are mixed together
with those picked by paid workers. Some coffee industry executives
acknowledge the use of slaves, but say the labor issue isn't their
concern. "This industry isn't responsible for what happens
in a foreign country," said Gary Goldstein of the National
Coffee Association, which represents the companies that make Folgers,
Maxwell House, Nescafe and other brands.
Neither Folgers nor Maxwell House responded to inquiries about
the origins of their coffee. Shipping records, though, showed that
on Sunday, March 18, 2001, 337 tons of Ivory Coast coffee beans
were sent to Folgers through Houston, Texas.
The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of both chocolate and
coffee. In fact, coffee is the second largest legal U.S. import
- after oil. Fortunately, there is considerable momentum developing
in this country and elsewhere behind the emergence of Fair Trade
coffee.
According to the San Francisco-based Global Exchange, "The
best way to prevent child labor in the fields is to pay workers
a living wage… Most people in this country would rather buy
a cup of coffee picked under fair trade conditions than sweatshop
labor conditions… Fair Trade Certified coffee is the first
product being introduced in the United States with an independently
monitored system to ensure that it was produced under fair labor
conditions… To become Fair Trade certified, an importer must
meet stringent international criteria [including] paying a minimum
price per pound of $1.26."
Paying a minimum price of $1.26 to growers is a major step, because
coffee prices on the world market currently run between 60 - 95
cents a pound, trapping many coffee farmers in an inescapable cycle
of poverty, debt, and hunger. Ten years ago, the world coffee economy
was worth $30 billion - and producers received $12 billion, or 40
percent. But today, the world market has grown to be worth $50 billion
- and producers receive just $8 billion, or 16 percent. Though they
have not lowered consumer prices, coffee companies are paying far
less for the beans they use. This creates, at best, sweatshops in
the field, and at worst, the conditions that breed human slavery.
Fair Trade, whether it's coffee or chocolate, means an equitable
partnership between consumers in North America and producers in
Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It means that farmers'
cooperatives around the world can count on a stable and reliable
living wage. When consumers purchase Fair Trade coffee or chocolate,
they know that their money is going to local farmers where it is
then invested in health care, education, environmental stewardship,
community development, and economic independence. They know it's
not going to enrich CEOs making tens of millions of dollars annually.
This is important because destitute farmers are struggling to survive
and even resorting to child slavery, while…
Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp. supplies more than 200 million
pounds of coffee annually to more than 100,000 restaurants in
the United States. In 2000, the most recent year for which public
records exist, Sara Lee CEO John H. Bryan took home $45,512,113
in compensation.
In 2000, Starbucks CEO Orin C. Smith, received $13,873,575 in
compensation from the coffee company, plus $12,847,925 in stock
option exercises. He still holds more than $33,000,000 in unexercised
stock options.
Neither of these gentlemen, however, matched the pay received
by the CEO of the company that owns Northfield, Illinois-based
Maxwell House. In 2000, the CEO of Philip Morris, Geoffrey C.
Bible, received $45,794,705 in compensation for his services,
not including the more than $71,000,000 he holds in unexercised
stock options.
Others in the coffee industry also did well. Folgers is owned
by Procter and Gamble, whose CEO, Durk I. Jager, received $32,828,276
in compensation in 2000, not including the more than $10,000,000
he holds in unexercised stock options.
On the chocolate side, things are a little less posh, but top
management seems to be able to get by. In 2000, Kenneth L. Wolfe,
CEO of Hershey Foods, took home $7,877,554 in compensation from
Hershey Foods, plus $2,615,838 in stock option exercises from
prior grants. He still holds more than $4,000,000 in unexercised
stock options.
In 2000, G. Allen Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, owner
of ADM Cocoa, received $8,381,371 in compensation for his services
to the company.
It is not easy for most consumers to stomach the contrast between
exorbitant salaries such as these, and the gruesome reality of slave
labor. Nor is easy to swallow the reality of such excess when millions
of coffee and cocoa farmers around the world who depend on their
harvests to provide for their families are facing debt and starvation.
There seems to be something particularly hideous about making this
kind of money on the backs of the world's poorest people.
Fair Trade On The Rise
Fair trade is a growing trend. On October 4, 2000, Starbucks introduced
whole bean Fair Trade coffee to 2,300 stores. A year later, the
company announced it would brew Fair Trade coffee once a month.
Across the country, there are now over 80 companies that have licensing
agreements to offer Fair Trade certified coffee. These companies
include Starbucks, Tully's, Peet's, Equal Exchange, Diedrich, and
Green Mountain.
Kevin Bales, director of Free The Slaves, says that consumers "can
make a significant impact on world slavery just by stopping for
a moment and asking themselves how that particular item got to be
so cheap. The low cost of many items defies belief. Part of the
reason things are so cheap is that the big chain stores buy huge
quantities at huge discounts, and have designed their distribution
systems to reduce overhead all along the product chain. But I suspect
that these efficiencies and economies of scale don't account for
all of the cheapness. You see a lot of cheap items made in China,
for example, and there are serious questions about what happens
in Chinese factories. The bottom line is: oftentimes things are
cheap because slaves helped produce them."
Most Western consumers, if they can identify slave-produced goods,
would avoid them despite their lower price. But consumers do look
for bargains, and don't usually stop to ask why a product is so
cheap. It is certainly sobering to realize that by always looking
for the best deal, we may be choosing slave-made products without
knowing what we are buying.
We have reason for hope, though, based on how well most consumers
respond to the challenge of slavery - when they know about it. Once
people understand that slavery still exists, they are nearly unanimous
in their desire to see it stopped. Fortunately, there are people
who have taken on the task of informing people about the grim reality,
and providing them with empowering alternatives.
One such activist is Deborah James, the Fair Trade Director of
Global Exchange. She is currently coordinating a campaign against
child slavery, and for Fair Trade, in the cocoa industry in West
Africa. For the last two years, Deborah has spearheaded efforts
to promote Fair Trade Certified coffee among campuses, community
groups, and city councils around the nation. She led the successful
campaign to pressure Starbucks to carry Fair Trade coffee in their
stores, and is now campaigning to get industry giant Folgers to
buy Fair Trade. (To learn about the Folgers campaign, see globalexchange.org/economy/coffee/folgers.html).
Other heroic activists have focussed on the carpet industry. Not
that many years ago, many Oriental carpets were hand-woven by children
who were forced to work in the most miserable of conditions for
little or no pay. Many were made by child slaves. If you have an
Oriental rug on your floor right now, there is a good chance that
it was woven by slave children.
But then, a few years ago, a handful of European activists working
from a tiny office with minimal funds started the Rugmark Campaign.
In order to earn the "rugmark," carpet producers had to
agree to cooperate with independent monitors, not to exploit children,
and to turn over one percent of their carpet wholesale price to
child-welfare organizations. A sophisticated monitoring team was
built up that can detect fake labels, knows carpet making inside
and out, and can't be corrupted. Today, the German, U.S., and Canadian
governments recognize the Rugmark label, as does the largest mail-order
company in the world, the Otto Versand Group. Major retailers in
the United States, Germany and Holland now import only rugmarked
carpets. In Europe, the market share possessed by rugmarked carpets
stands at 30 percent, and is growing. The one percent from the producers
has now built and staffed two Rugmark schools in the part of India
where uneducated children were formerly fodder for the slave trade.
The campaign has drawn the attention of other organizations, with
the result that the German government and the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF) now fund other schools in the areas that used to be
recruiting grounds for the carpet belt.
It is clear that, once aware, most people do not want to buy chocolate,
coffee, rugs, or any other product made with slave labor. On the
contrary, the success of Rugmark carpets, like the dramatic rise
of Fair Trade chocolate and coffee, is a heartening example that
given a chance most consumers want to be in an equitable relationship
with the people who make the products they consume.
Seven Things You Can Do
1) Educate yourself further. Good sources of information include:
Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org)
The Child Labor Coalition (www.stopchildlabor.org)
Anti-Slavery (www.antislavery.org)
Unfair Trade (www.unfairtrade.co.uk)
Fair Trade (www.fairtrade.org/html/english.html)
Abolish: The Anti-Slavery Portal (www.iabolish.com)
For information on specific chocolate companies, see www.radicalthought.org
Kevin Bales' book Disposable People (University of California
Press, 2000) is a thoroughly researched expose of modern day slavery.
2) Write a letter to the editor or an article in your local newspaper.
3) Buy Fair Trade chocolate and/or coffee for gifts that show you
care about fairness for everyone. Or sell Fair Trade chocolate and/or
coffee as a fundraiser for your church, school, or community group.
Fair Trade chocolate is available at http://store.globalexchange.org/chocolate.html
Fair Trade coffee is available at http://store.globalexchange.org/peace.html
4) Get stores in your community to carry Fair Trade chocolate and
coffee. For support, email fairtrade@globalexchange.org
5) Contact the big chocolate companies, and ask them to buy Fair
Trade cocoa. Hershey Foods Corp. can be reached at 100 Crystal A
Drive, Hershey, PA 17033; (717) 534-6799. Mars, Inc. can be reached
at 6885 Elm Street, McLean, VA 22101; (703) 821-4900. Tell them
that you expect something to be done immediately to ensure that
cocoa imported into the U.S. is not harvested by enslaved children.
6) Support the Fair Trade campaign by joining organizations such
as Global Exchange. They can be reached at 2017 Mission Street,
#303, San Francisco, California 94110; (415) 255-7296; info@globalexchange.org
7) Support the anti-slavery movement by joining organizations such
as Anti-Slavery International. They can be reached in the U.S. at
Suite 312-CIP, 1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
20036-2102. The main office is Anti-Slavery International, Thomas
Clarkson House, The Stableyard, Broomgrove Road, London SW9 9TL,
England
(John Robbins is the author of many best-sellers, including
Diet For A New America, and his recently released The Food Revolution.
He is the founder of EarthSave International, and can be contacted
through the website foodrevolution.org)