By Jennifer O'Connor
THE UNSAVOURY In 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), a Washington, D.C.,-based advocacy organization, and an Alabama civil rights firm launched a class-action suit on behalf of children who were trafficked from Mali to Cote d'Ivoire to work in cocoa bean production. Over 40 percent of the world's cocoa beans are grown in Cote d'Ivoire, and Canada's cocoa imports from there have doubled over the past five years, according to Carol Off, author of Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet.
THE ALTERNATIVE Fair trade-certified chocolate companies, such as Ottawa-based La Siembra Co-op (makers of Cocoa Camino products), don't use any child or forced labour. And such companies have been growing in influence--TransFair Canada, the non-profit that certifies fair trade items, is approving more than 10 times the amount of chocolate it did a few years ago....