So this year Cadbury's have pledged to make their Dairy Milk Bar certified fairtrade and, as soon as they can, to convert the other brands of Cadbury's chocolate.
Well done Cadbury I guess....it's a good start to the year.
and after this happens a grand total of 15% of all chocolate bought in the UK will be fairtrade!!!
In 2001, after an international outcry and a warning from the United States Congress, the global chocolate industry signed an agreement known as the Cocoa protocol. At first they promised to have made serious inroads towards ending the problem by July 2005. But they missed their targets, and Congress gave them three more years.... (does anyone else work that out to be July 2008?!)
Anyway, in July 2005, International Labor Rights Fund filed suit against Nestlé in Federal District Court on behalf of a class of children who were trafficked from Mali into the Ivory Coast and forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings.
What was Nestlé's response to court questioning? "We are only buyers of a product.”
Shocking?? But then are 'we only buyers of a product' when we choose to ignore what we know about the product and how it was produced and take the slightly cheaper, more convenient option??
In 2007 a Dutch TV producer Teun van de Keuken decided enough was enough and that as 'the buyer of the product' he was just as guilty.
He ate 19 chocolate bars and then turned himself into police for knowingly buying a product made with slave labor, something he says is criminal under Dutch law. "At first, I just called the police and said I did a terrible thing. They said, 'Don't worry, we all eat chocolate, good-bye.' Then I hired a lawyer."
His attempt to prosecute himself was dismissed by the court, but Van de Keuken launched an appeal. In the meantime, he took his TV show to Burkina Faso to find some of the children forced to work on the cocoa plantations — kids, he says, who had never tasted chocolate until he gave them some. (They liked it.) Van de Keuken says recruiters from the Ivory Coast cross the border into the destitute country and lure children over with promises of money or even bicycles. Once they get there, he says, "they're forced to work, not paid, and not allowed to leave — the U.N. definition of slavery."
So... what did he do next.. no he didn't end up in prison.. he began producing his own 'slavery-free' chocolate!!!
Not something we can all do maybe, but it's a nice end to his story I guess!?
So, as consumers, the ball's in our court... we can boycott chocolate produced by companies who continue to buy cocoa from plantations that use slave labour and support companies that trade fairly with ethical cocoa suppliers OR we can choose to ignore the facts about how our 'little luxury' is produced and continue to show support to the darker side of the chocolate industry.... and my choice??
Well, if it's not traded fairly then it's not in my basket!
http://www.montezumas.co.ukGet your free range organic eggs from montezumas this easter.... fairly traded chocolate of course!
Ha! I've finally got my bin out for collection on the 'right' day and in the 'right' place... it's taken me a little old while to get used to the steps in my front garden and the fact they come at silly o'clock in the morning, but we're there! All empty and looking good... well, as good as a dirty old bin can look?!
