789: Chocolate | Skeptical Sunday

Child Trafficking

The chocolate industry is marred by the trafficking of children for labor on cacao farms. David C. Smalley explains that traffickers often deceive families, promising education and care for their children, only to subject them to harsh conditions and long hours 1. Some children are outright abducted from their villages in countries like Burkina Faso and Mali, while others are sold by their desperate families 1. These children, some as young as five, are forced to perform dangerous tasks such as climbing trees and using machetes 2.

Traffickers are literally just kidnapping children and then selling them to farmers. And the farmers benefit because you don't have this sort of lingering, "I have to give this kid back in two or three years or at the end of a year for this dollar amount." They just literally buy the kid and we're seeing modern-day slavery.

--- David C. Smalley

The lack of oversight and the dire economic conditions in these regions perpetuate this cycle of exploitation 2.

   

Exploitation

Children working on cacao farms face severe exploitation and hazardous conditions. David C. Smalley highlights that these children are exposed to dangerous tools like chainsaws and machetes, and harmful pesticides, violating international labor laws 3. The pressure on farmers to keep prices competitive leads them to exploit child labor, often resulting in trafficking 4. The economic disparity and lack of enforcement allow these practices to continue unchecked.

When it's your country's 15 percent of the entire country's GDP, there's a ton of pressure to keep that machine moving regardless of who it hurts, and that's devastating.

--- David C. Smalley

The demand for cheap chocolate fuels this exploitation, making it a systemic issue that requires global attention and action 4.