The Dark Side of Chocolate

Child traffickers

Ethical concept

The most Ethical and adapted solution

would be that a bill, such as the Harkin-Engel

Protocol, can be approved and applied.

Moreover, the justice and the government of

Ivory Coast should be much more watchful`

and more severe with people as child traffickers or chocolate manufacturers or cocoa farmers which exploits children who were kidnapped.

And even more, best could be

to have an awareness campaign

all over the world, to make the

chocolate manufacturers (Nestlé,Mars..)

react as well as all the consumers.

Why it never became a law

• The Harkin-Engel Protocol would lead to the end of child slavery
• Programs to educate cocoa farmers; growing techniques and avoiding slave labor
• Other ethical ways of producing chocolate f.ex processed chocolate from "untained" beans

Action/Reaction

Government of Ivory Coast

• Led to threats from Representative Engel and Senator Harkin to make new rule that would forbid import of cocoa made by slaves
• Certification system in 2002 in which Chocolate industry promised to eliminate slavery labor
• in 2011 issue still unresolved
• apparantely no way to assure that slavery has stoped

• Before becoming a law, it needs to be accepted by both House of Representatives and Senate
• U.S chocolate industry and lobbyists Dole and Mitchell against the « slave-free » label
• Could hurt sales, cocoa farmers and lead to more slavery

Conclusion

Systemic ethical issue

• Legal aspect of slavery
• Economic systems

1. What are the systemic, corporate and individual ethical issues raised by this case?

Corporate ethical issue

• Middlemen
• Chocolate manufactures

Individual ethical issue

• Farmers from the Ivory Coast
• Consumers

Cocoa Farmers

Not a lot of progress has been made to stop child labor and slavery in the chocolate industry of Western Africa. The goal is to eliminate what the ILO calls “the worst forms of child labor.”

Chocolate is a luxury and not a necessity

In this case, consumers can make

the difference.

They can use fair trade brands like:

Clif Bar, Cloud nine or

Dagoba Organic Chocolate..

3

Who shares in the moral responsibility for the slavery occurring in the chocolate industry?

They force children from 8 to 16 years old

to work

4. Consider the bill that Representive Engel and Senator Harkin attempted to enact into a law, but which never became a law because of the lobbying efforts of the chocolate companies. What does this incident show about the view that "to be ethical it is enough for businesspeople to follow the law"?

Middlemen

Absolutely immoral no matter the place where it occurs

“Every year unknown numbers of these boys die or are killed on the cocoa farms that supply our chocolate.”

as Daniels Midland Co.,

Barry Callebaut,

and Cargill Inc.

2. In your view, is the kind of child slavery discussed in this case absolutely wrong no matter what, or is it only relatively wrong, i.e., if one happens to live in a society (like ours) that disapproves of slavery?

Chocolate Manufacturers

Extra Question 1

The lobbyists

as Bob Dole and George Mitchell

They helped the U.S Chocolate

Industry to make disapprove

the "Harkin-Engel protocol"

by the senate.

Honestly, now that you're aware that most of the chocolate industry uses cocoa refined by children would you still consume chocolate from companies mentioned earlier

(Nestlé, Mars, Hershey...)?

Table of Contents

B. “Chocolate is a $13 billion industry in the U.S. which consumes 3.1 billion pounds each year”. In your opinion what could be done to minimize the current problem of child slavery in Cocoa Farms?

Case : Chocolate slavery

Introduction

• Ethical Chocolate Choices

• Associations and Campaigns

Introduction

“45% of the chocolate we consume in the US and in the rest of the world is made from cocoa beans grown and harvested on farms in the Ivory Coast. Few realize that a portion of the Ivory Coast cocoa beans that goes into the chocolate we eat was grown and harvested by slaved children"

Important Facts

A Public Statment

INTERPOL estimated that hundreds of thousands of children are working illegally in the plantations

"[...] The farmers whip, beat and starve the boys to force them to do the hot, difficult work of clearing the fields, harvesting the beans and drying them in the sun.”

Questions and Discussion

2001

Human Rights report estimated that about 15.000 children from the neighboring nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Togo had been sold into slavery to labor on Ivory Coast farms

Harkin-Engel Protocol

The chocolate manufactures association and the world cocoa foundation as well as the major chocolate producers all signed an agreement to establish a system of certification that would verify and certify that the cocoa beans they used were not produced by the use of child slaves

Conclusion

Bibliography

Sources

• “Business ethics concepts and Cases, Manuel G.Velasquez”, Pearson, 7th Edition
• Documentary "The Dark Side of Chocolate"
• "Chocolate Slavery" Case

The Dark Side of Chocolate