MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday 20 August 2009

New Zealand chocolate industry challenged to say it’s slave free

The not-for-profit organisation Trade Aid is urging New Zealand consumers to challenge chocolate manufacturers over the use of cocoa made with child slave labour.

Trade Aid wants chocolate makers to answer the simple question; “Can you put a slave-free label on it? Yes or no – no ifs, buts or maybes.”

Slavery and especially child slavery is endemic within the chocolate industry. West Africa supplies nearly 80% of the world’s cocoa, according to the International Labour Organisation, with 46% coming from Ivory Coast. In 2005 ILO claimed there were over 150,000 children working under the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa industry in Ivory Coast alone. An estimated 12,000 of whom had been trafficked – very disturbing figures for chocolate lovers.

“Children as young as 10 or 11 are being bought by cocoa plantation owners and forced to work 12 hours a day under extreme conditions. At night they’re locked up in tiny rooms together with hardly any light or ventilation and only a tin can as a toilet. These kids are being forced to carry massive loads jeopardising their health, and if they can’t manage they’re savagely beaten” says Trade Aid General Manager, Geoff White.

Many New Zealand chocolate companies source their cocoa beans from Ghana and simply claim Ghana does not have a child slavery problem. Geoff White says “This may well have been the case a few years ago. But, faced with unfair competition in the form of lower prices from neighbouring Ivory Coast, cocoa farmers in Ghana are beginning to use child labour and look set to follow the downward spiral into the use of child slaves. Already it is no longer possible to say purchasing from Ghana ensures no child slaves are involved in the supply chain.”

As the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition nears on Sunday August 23, the Non Government Organisation Trade Aid wants all chocolate manufacturers to declare whether or not their product is slave free in a simple yes or no answer.

In 2007 following a 17,000 strong Trade Aid petition to ban the import of goods made with slave labour, Government recommended companies voluntarily label products slave-free. Just last month a bill to ban such products coming in to New Zealand was rejected in parliament.

New Zealand chocolate companies all have Codes of Conduct and Corporate Social Responsibility statements that testify to their moral upstanding. But Geoff

White says, “If they do not know where and from whom they source their cocoa these words are meaningless.”

So will the likes of Cadbury and Whittakers come clean about slave labour in their cocoa supply? Geoff White says “If Kiwi consumers thought their favourite chocolate bars were made from the suffering of child slaves, they’d think again about buying it. This leaves a very bad taste in any chocolate lovers mouth, and we urge them to challenge the manufacturers.”

Trade Aid can prove its chocolate is slave free because it is part of a fair trade system which is both socially responsible and transparent. Justin Purser, Trade Aid’s Food manager says “We buy our cocoa and sugar from producer-owned co-operatives which are focused on improving the lives of their members. We know which cooperatives our cocoa beans and sugar comes from, we know they are all certified and therefore audited by an independent organisation to ensure they follow accepted production standards. These standards prohibit the use of slaves or bonded labour, or of work being carried out by children which would interfere with their education.”

The proof that other New Zealand companies are not slave free is simply that they themselves don’t know. They don’t know what plantations they buy from, as they buy at auctions and from cocoa boards. Justin Purser says “Through these centralised buying processes the companies can’t trace the beans, which is convenient for them as they then can’t be held accountable for participating in the slavery that exists within their industry. However when a problem is endemic in an industry, lack of traceability is a big problem.”

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