this is taken from the world vision website http://www.worldvision.co...021203.asp

For most of us, chocolate is constantly delicious and intriguing. For others it is not. Unfortunately our loveliest sweet has a darker side - child labour and slavery.

Over 284 000 children work in hazardous conditions in West Africa's cocoa industry and some 2500 are suspected to be trafficked as slaves each year. The region produces 70% of the world's cocoa - chocolate's main ingredient.

The situation is so serious that an International Cocoa Initiative has been launched to bring the International Chocolate Industry, aid agencies and corporate stakeholders together over the issue.

Significant re-emergence of slave labour, particularly in regions like Africa's Ivory Coast, has been linked to the downturn in the price of raw cocoa due to global overproduction and the local deregulation of agriculture.

Traditionally, the farms in the Ivory Coast have provided a living for people from poorer neighbouring countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo.

But small farmers have been left at the mercy of the global marketplace and have been forced to cut labour costs.

Since then, it's suspected that over 15,000 children have been sold into forced labour on northern Ivory Coast plantations in recent years.

Children working in the plantations are involved in dangerous work, including spraying pesticides, using machetes and carrying heavy loads. The majority of these children is under the age of 14 and has no access to education or health care.

"The beatings were a part of my life," Aly Diabate, a freed slave, told reporters in 2001. "Anytime they loaded you with bags [of cocoa] and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead, they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again."

The association between child labour and chocolate is not new. It dates back to the 17th century when chocolate's popularity spread causing the French, English and Dutch to challenge the Spanish monopoly on cocoa. This resulted in an industry (in Africa and Latin America) that relied heavily on forced labour of Africans, Native Americans and imported African slaves.

So, should I still eat chocolate?

You shouldn't have to stop eating chocolate! But perhaps you should start considering that by eating some brands of chocolate you are indirectly supporting industries that use child and slave labour.

What can I do?

Positively purchase. Buy the chocolate that you know is made by the good guys, rather than boycotting chocolate all together (which in the end only further compounds market prices and may further harm the children at the end of the production chain).

Positively purchasing is the only way you can be confident that you're eating chocolate that is free from exploited labour. Often it is difficult to ascertain if a chocolate company uses child labour practices unless it is written on the packaging. Which it never is of course.

What is written on some labels, however, is "fair trade". Fair trade guarantees that products, such as chocolate are slave free. Fair trade products meet strict conditions, including no forced or illegal child labour. They also give producers a fair price for their produce which challenges unfair trading systems that keep people in poverty and often forces them into slavery.

You can buy some fair trade chocolate blocks and drinking chocolate under brand names like "Green & Black's" at an increasing number of major supermarkets eg Coles.

You can also find ethically produced chocolate at some health food and organic outlets, and you can often buy others online through Oxfam Community Aid Abroad http://commerce.e2.com.au...talog.asp?

AARRGGGHHH!! The Guilt!

If i go a day without chocolate i get restless.
Damn!!! That's gotta change.

how come prince never mentions this in his songs???

Shit, it's the same with everything, be it trainers, electrical goods or chocolate. It'd be bloody hard to live in this world now without enjoying the fruits of someone's child labour.

Doesn't make it right though.

It's trap.

Maybe u can purchase chocolate in this way but I don't think u can purchase a stylish pair of shoes or a nice sweatshirt like that.



NOTE: If u want to read a book about all of the atrocities and cunning marketing of big companies read:

"No Logo" by Naomi Klein.

Brilliant, scathing book.

Stick it on your Xmas list, it's a fascinating book.