Cocoa used to make big brand chocolate is regularly harvested in part by forced, child and trafficked labourers in West Africa.
With plummeting crop prices, many farmers are subject to poverty and forced labour in an attempt to increase their crop yield. Many children regularly work on family farms to supplement their low and often unfair income. These children carry heavy loads, work with fire, chemicals and knives, with little or no protection. Often they have no hope of going to school.
Some media reports have claimed that in the worst cases, children as young as six are being forced to work 80-100 hours a week, enduring beatings and malnutrition on top of back-breaking work.
Your choices can be the difference
There is now a choice when you buy – choose ethical chocolate. Ethical chocolate uses cocoa that is independently certified to have been harvested without the use of forced, child or trafficked labour.
Ethical certification schemes such as Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance or UTZ Certified guarantee a better choice for consumers, and a fairer deal for farmers.
These schemes independently certify goods and services were produced without exploitation of humans, animals or the natural environment.
Fairtrade agrees to pay farmers a fair price for their crops. Fairtrade and other certification schemes empower farmers to achieve autonomy and independence as producers.
Look for Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance or UTZ Certified logos on chocolate packaging to be sure you’re not contributing to this exploitation.
In order to have stores stock products using ethical cocoa, retailers need to know there’s a demand for it.
Tell your local café, department store and supermarket that you’d buy ethical chocolate if they stocked it.
Tell your supermarket they should consider the use of ethically certified cocoa in their home brand products.
Download our
Chocolate Retailer coupons. Hand one to your local retailer and tell them why you are doing it.
Download the
Good Chocolate Guide to find out who is stocking ethical chocolate, and where to get it.