The Hershey Trust Co., a nonprofit dedicated to housing and educating disadvantaged children, will be asked this month to act on a proposal that proponents think can help protect vulnerable children working on cocoa farms.

The trust company is being put in that position because it has a controlling interest in The Hershey Co. A human-rights group wants The Hershey Co. to issue a public report on its African cocoa suppliers.

The goal is to determine if the confectioner is using suppliers involved in a federal lawsuit over child-labor conditions at West African cocoa farms. The group, Global Exchange of San Francisco, has asked shareholders to vote on the proposal at their annual meeting on April 18.

The request stems from published reports five years ago that some West African cocoa farms were using child slave labor to harvest their crops. The Hershey Trust Co., founded by Milton S. Hershey 101 years ago, can cast 78.8 percent of the total votes on the resolution.

Rob Vowler, president and CEO of the trust, said he intends to vote against the Global Exchange resolution. He said disclosure of Hershey's cocoa suppliers "would put the company at a competitive disadvantage."

"From my understanding, the company has taken a very active and responsible position on the child-labor issue," he said.

Hershey spokesman John Long said "much has been accomplished" since the media attention on the cocoa farms five years ago.

"A certification system is being developed to monitor farm-labor conditions in the region and ensure that corrective action is taken when needed," he said. "With some 2 million small farms to be reached, this work will take time if it's to be lasting and actually help, not harm, these families."

Stock allows vote:

Global Exchange got the issue on the agenda for the annual meeting because it owns 80 shares of Hershey stock. It's the first time a shareholder has submitted a proposal asking Hershey to document its sources of cocoa.

The group filed a federal lawsuit in California last July on behalf of some Mali men who contend they were forced to work without pay at Ivory Coast cocoa farms in the late 1990s, when they were teenagers.

Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of cocoa beans. Its 600,000 farms provide about 40 percent of the worldwide supply.

Bama Athreya, deputy director of the International Labor Rights Fund and a Global Exchange board member, said the Mali children were brought to Ivory Coast under false pretenses, were not paid and couldn't leave.

Cargill Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Co. and the Nestle Co. are named as defendants in the lawsuit. The suit claims that the companies failed "to leverage their economic power and operative control over suppliers and/or buyers to adequately monitor the working conditions" on the farms.

Athreya said it would be "extremely unusual" if Hershey were not using one or all three of these companies as suppliers.

Long wouldn't comment on Hershey's suppliers. He said there are about 140 suppliers of cocoa beans and derivative products such as cocoa butter. "Hershey buys from nearly all of them," Long said. "We don't publicly disclose the names of these suppliers or the amounts purchased, given the harm it could cause our business if competitors were to learn the details."

In asking shareholders to vote against the Global Exchange resolution, The Hershey Co. contends the request to disclose a list of cocoa suppliers is impractical, noting that its suppliers change with market conditions and it would be publicizing information about competitive sources.

But Athreya said it's important for Hershey shareholders to know whether they are exposed to risks because some of the company's cocoa suppliers are named as defendants in a child-slavery lawsuit.

Athreya said the resolution is about "transparency" in the cocoa-supply process.

"If what they are doing is so great, then let's be transparent about the supply chain," Athreya said.

Lawsuit pending:

Long said the judge assigned to handle the lawsuit has not decided whether it can proceed. "Even if it does, the case will have no direct effect on Hershey since we are not involved in any of the activities the plaintiffs allege in their complaint," he said. "It is too early to predict whether there would be any indirect effect."

A Cargill spokeswoman said she could not comment on the litigation. She referred to a statement on the Cargill Web site about its position on cocoa-farming practices.

The statement said: "Cargill requires that all of our direct suppliers of cocoa beans in West Africa, both licensed buyers and cooperatives, sign a statement acknowledging that they understand that Cargill is committed to the elimination of abusive child labor practices in the cocoa supply chain and that their supplier contract is subject to termination if we find they are employing abusive child labor practices."

Nestle and ADM have posted similar statements on their Web sites.

Child-labor conditions:

The three companies, as well as Hershey and others, are participants in an agreement reached in 2001 to address child-labor practices on West African cocoa farms, most of them family operations.

A 2001-02 survey by the Sustainable Tree Crops Program of the Institute of Tropical Agriculture found that "the vast majority of cocoa farms in West Africa were growing the crop responsibly," Long said. However, the survey did find cases where children were carrying heavy loads, using machetes and applying chemicals.

The industry said it is working with the farms to institute safer practices for child labor. It also maintains it is helping provide schooling and teachers for the children.

Athreya is not convinced. "There's continuing cause for concern," she said.

And this concern is underscored by the industry's failure to meet a July 1, 2005, protocol deadline to establish monitoring standards for labor conditions in the cocoa supply chain, she said. As of July, the industry had established one pilot program in Ghana and "nothing in the Ivory Coast," she said.

"We don't believe that they have done nearly enough" to address and solve the problem, she said.

Hershey and industry representatives disagreed. The industry maintained it is committed to a supply chain that is free of forced child labor and unsafe working conditions.

"Hershey is playing a leadership role in efforts to improve the lives of children in West Africa," Long said. "This includes the implementation of a certification system to monitor and improve farm labor conditions in the region, as well as support for International Cocoa Initiative programs helping communities in West Africa better understand the kinds of farm work appropriate for children."

Hershey is working through the World Cocoa Foundation to help farmers increase their income "by growing cocoa sustainably" and "providing families with money for schooling and hired help on the farm," he said.

The industry also said it will have a monitoring system in place to cover at least 50 percent of the cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana by the middle of 2008.

Athreya said the first she heard of the July 2008 pledge was last July, when the industry didn't issue its monitoring standards.

Global Exchange said it supports fair-trade certification standards that cocoa farms receive income so they can pay fair wages and send their children to school. It said consumers should seek chocolate with a "fair trade" label.