Child Slavery in the Chocolate Industry

West Africa has the largest amount of cocoa farms that supplies Hershey's, Mars and Nestle

Causes of Child Labor

• the most common causes are poverty, no education, tradition of learning family skills and most families in poor countries will need their children to work to help support their family.

• Employers prefer children to work for them as they constitute cheap labor and are not able to organize themselves against exploitation.

• In neighboring countries of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, often children of small villages will be abducted and then brought across the border to work in the cocoa farms.

• Also children are often sold to these farms being unaware of the dangerous working conditions and areas. Or their parents will send them away to the farms to work but some children then don’t see their parents for years, and in some cases never again.

Child Labor in Western Africa

• Africa supplies 70% of the worlds chocolate supply and Hershey’s alone uses 43% of it

• They would use a machete to split cocoa beans which is very dangerous

• They would be beaten and abused if they weren’t doing their job

• Children often wont see their families for years or never again

• For the children that are lucky enough to escape, their physical and psychological scars will need a long time to heal

• 68% of the children are unpaid family workers

Abdul from Western Africa

• Abdul is a 10 year old boy who has worked for three years and counting on a cocoa farm. He has no income and is paid in food. When his mother died, a stranger brought him across the border to the farm to work and hasn’t seen his family since. Abdul is covered in scars and wounds from the machete he uses every day. Unfortunately this is also the case for over 1.7 million children in West Africa working on cocoa farms.

Industrial Revolution 21st Century • Children as young as age 6 worked

for little or no pay • Worked average 14 hours with

horrible conditions • Worked with dangerous and heavy

equipment• Punishment for being late was

being “weighted”Would tie a heavy weight to their backs and have them walk up and down the factory isles so all the other workers could see them and “take example”

• More than 27 million slaves in the world today, most there has every been• Over 218 million children ages 5-17

are involved in child labor world wide • 126 million children work in

hazardous conditions, being abused, humiliated and sexually violated by people they work with • Having 122 million people being used

for child labor, Asia has the highest amount of child laborers

Ways to help stop child labor

• Be aware of child labor and don’t start anymore of it• Report child labor • Educate others and create

awareness • Recruit others to help you

campaign • Be responsible • Act responsible