INTRODUCTION

In June of last year, at the All Candy Expo in Chicago, school children dressed up as M&Ms handed out flyers asking chocolate companies to make sure their products aren't made using illegal child labor. They encouraged chocolate buyers and suppliers to buy their cocoa beans from farms that are fair trade certified, ensuring that farmers are paid a decent wage and children aren't enslaved or working under illegal conditions.

The U.S. chocolate industry had finally acknowledged, three years earlier, that illegal child labor is a major problem at cocoa farms in West Africa, especially the Ivory Coast, which supplies 40 percent of the world's cocoa. To avoid legislation that could have forced chocolate companies to label their products with "no slave labor" labels (for which many major chocolate manufacturers wouldn't qualify), the industry agreed to a voluntary protocol to end abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by 2005.

But, like last year, when the children in their M&M costumes reminded the chocolate industry of its promise, little progress has been made by the industry this year in meeting the goals set forth in the voluntary protocol. With less than one month remaining until the protocol deadline, it has become apparent that the chocolate industry is nowhere near meeting its obligations to ensure that child slaves are not used to produce cocoa in the Ivory Coast. Industry's voluntary initiative to eliminate the worst forms of child labor by July 1, 2005, also known as the Harkin-Engel Protocol, is failing to produce any real effective change on the ground. The multinational chocolate corporations continue to lack transparency and a real commitment to change their business practices.

Meanwhile, as the industry has dragged its feet on the need to eradicate illegal child labor from its production process, another phenomenon has developed. More and more consumers have begun purchasing Fair Trade chocolate -- that is, chocolate that has been certified by an international monitoring group to meet certain labor, wage, and environmental standards.

This report documents these two trends: the lack of movement in the chocolate industry as a whole on the issue of illegal child labor and the forward movement by consumers who are concerned about the working conditions of cocoa workers and have begun demanding Fair Trade chocolate.

Click here to download a PDF of the full report.