This Easter, I encourage to use your chocolate buying power to support justice. I didn't learn until recently that over 40% of cocoa beans come from the Ivory Coast. To get these beans, children are kidnapped and kept as slaves to harvest the beans working 14-16 hours a day and frequently beaten. They are packed and locked in small rooms at night to sleep on wooden boards with one small hole for air and a bucket to use to relieve themselves.
These claims are backed by NPR, Time magazine, Al Jazeera, and the BBC, among others. The largest culprits are Hersheys, Nestle, and Mars (M&Ms, Milky Way, Snickers, Dove). Other leading companies who are NOT buying fair trade include Lindt, Russell Stover, Ritter, Cote D’or, Guylian, Godiva, Ghirardelli, Toblerone, and other leading brands.
Cadberry is supposed to be slave free (at least in their milk chocolate) by the end of summer 2009. Some other slave free brands to look for are Equal Exchange, Dagoba, Endangered Species, Theo, and Maya Gold by Green & Blacks. Here is a list of other fair trade chocolate.
It's easy to be passive and blame it on the corrupt chocolate companies who know what's going on, or even to blame the countries that are enslaving these children. But being passive doesn't help anything. One verse that God frequently brings to my mind is "To whom much is given, much is expected" Luke 12:48. I, and you now that you're reading this, have been given this knowledge about slavery's link to the chocolate that we eat. We have to make a decision about how we will spend our money--towards our own selfish desire for our favorite chocolate or towards buying fair trade chocolate. Will you help drive the demand to exploit and abuse children??
In this video, Tim Costello of World Vision Australia explains what he's learned about the link of chocolate and slavery in West Africa.
Ryan and I are now buying fair trade chocolate from Trader Joe's that is not as tasty to us as our formerly beloved Lindt chocolate. We encourage you to buy chocolate with the fair trade logo at the top of this post or that is reputably slave free. You may even choose to write to a chocolate company stating your financial disapproval of their practices or to speak with someone at your preferred grocery store about fair trade options if there aren't any.
Happy Easter!!!
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