Child labor in the cocoa industry | DW Documentary

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Major chocolate manufacturers have pledged to combat and eliminate child labor. They made this commitment more than 20 years ago. But even today, more than a million minors are still working on cocoa plantations. How is this possible?

In 2002, the chocolate industry made a contractual commitment to ban child labor on cocoa plantations within five years. We want to know: are companies honoring this commitment? Many chocolate manufacturers stand for fair trade and sustainability -- and against child labor. But as the film shows, often the fancy labels on chocolate packaging are just empty promises.

In Ivory Coast, for example, children still toil on cocoa plantations - with the simplest of tools, and without protective clothing, although they handle pesticides - for many hours every day. Often, they’re not the farmers’ children, but ‘slave children’ sent as laborers by desperate families in Mali or Burkina Faso because they’re no longer able to feed them.

But there are some small rays of hope: In the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic promotes fair organic farming. There is barely any child labor in this island nation and cocoa farmers can expect a fair income. Although the Caribbean produces just two per cent of global cocoa, it’s an example of what can be done.

The film also shows that sometimes, companies are unaware of conditions on the plantations, as practices are concealed by the middlemen. And that in some countries, little has changed since the signing of the protocol to end child labor in the cocoa industry.

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