Chocolate: still tainted by child labour
What is your New Year resolution? To get fitter and eat less sugar, including chocolate? There’s plenty of other reasons to re-think our love affair with chocolate. It will come as a surprise to many that hazardous child labour persists in the mainstream production of cocoa. For 20 years global brands that produce chocolate have promised to tackle what has been the biggest single human rights issue in the sector. A recent report from the University of Chicago shows they have a long way to go. In 2001, popular brands including brands Nestlé, Mars and Hershey and cocoa industry representatives adopted the voluntary Harkin Engel Protocol and then the Framework of Action to Support Implementation of the protocol , signed with the governments of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire where two-thirds of the world’s cocoa comes from. Not only would child labour be eliminated, but the sector would become 100% certified. Disturbingly, hazardous child labour has increased and...