By Tara Parker-Pope
...“Chocolate connects the millions of Americans who eat it daily to the growers around the world who depend on cocoa for their livelihoods,” said Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, Global Exchange’s fair trade campaign director, in a press release. “It is unthinkable that our children are eating chocolate made with illegal child labor or slave labor, especially when a viable solution, Fair Trade Certified chocolate, exists right now.”
Fair Trade certification requires farmers to abide by international labor laws that prohibit illegal child labor while also ensuring that farmers receive a fair, stable price for their cocoa and use environmentally sustainable farming practices.
A U.S. Department of Labor study released earlier this month found that millions of children between the ages of 5 and 17 toil in cocoa production in West Africa. The report, prepared by researchers at Tulane University, reported that in the cocoa growing regions of Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana, nearly 75 percent of children have sustained injuries, such as wounds and cuts or back pain, due to agricultural work. Cocoa work is considered hazardous for children because it requires they carry heavy loads and use machetes...