Knight Ridder News Service
June 25, 2001
By Sumana Chatterjee

How could modern society allow youngsters to be enslaved to produce a crop that becomes the very food -- chocolate -- that symbolizes happiness, luxury and romance?

It can happen because it's nearly hidden. The enslaved boys whom Knight Ridder found worked mostly on small farms scattered in remote parts of Ivory Coast. Few people get to the farms, even those in the cocoa trade. If they visit and see children at work, it's nearly impossible to tell if the children are members of the farmer's family or have been bought by the farmer, who may or may not pay them after years of work.

That allows everyone along the chocolate chain to pass blame and responsibility for the boy slaves to someone else. Farmers who use slaves blame the people responsible for the price of cocoa. Middlemen who deal with farmers say they don't see any slavery.

Ivory Coast government officials who enforce slavery laws say it's foreigners who are selling and using slaves in their country.

Cocoa suppliers say they can't be responsible because they don't control the farms.

Chocolate companies say they rely on their suppliers to provide cocoa untainted by slave labor. The trade associations blame Ivory Coast's unstable political situation. And consumers don't have an inkling that their favorite chocolate treats may be tainted by slave labor.

Sekongo Nagalouro doesn't think the boys working on his Ivory Coast farm are slaves. It's true that he gave a trafficker money for them. And it's true that he hasn't paid them yet for the work they do. But he intends to pay them at the end of the year from his crop profits, he said. Providing he can take care of his family and future crop expenses first. It all depends, he said, on the price of cocoa.

"Maybe there are some people who think this is modern-day slavery, but I don't think so," Nagalouro said.

Another Ivory Coast farmer, Dote Coulibaly, said he hasn't paid two boys who have worked on his farm for nearly two years. Other expenses keep getting in the way, he said, and now he owes the boys more than he made in all of last year.

Many who acknowledge that slavery exists offer the same explanation: the low price of cocoa.

"We cannot blame the farmers for exploiting these workers," said Abdelilah Benkirane, commercial director of the Society of Commercial Agricultural Producers of Daloa, one of Ivory Coast's biggest cocoa and coffee buyers, which exports 80 percent of its purchases to the United States and Europe. "The farmer has no influence on the global system. The system dictates the price."

Ivory Coast government officials concede that slaves work on some of the country's cocoa farms. But they believe that slavery is a small -- though spreading -- problem confined mostly to farms run by foreigners.

"Thank heavens, the proportion of this type of criminal farmers remains very low still," Ivory Coast Agriculture Minister Alfonse Douaty told members of the cocoa industry who were meeting in London in May. "One must also observe that a minuscule part of the native population is starting, nevertheless, to get involved."

Douaty also blames cocoa prices, and says other nations must help.

"... At an international level, we must also combine our efforts in committing to prices which provide sufficient income to the basic producer, so as to avoid perpetuating poverty in exporting countries and thus creating the conditions which lend themselves to the development of slavery in whichever form it presents itself."

People who work in the cocoa and chocolate industries aren't sure there really are slaves harvesting the beans they buy and process.

"You damn Americans with your Nike shoes think there is child slavery in chocolate," said V. I., who goes into the fields as a buyer in West Africa for ED&F Man, a top cocoa processor. "I have never seen any child slaves in all my travels through Africa."

"Everyone we have talked to in the country who has worked there years and years has never seen this practice," said Larry Graham, president of both the National Confectioners Association and the Chocolate Manufacturers Association of Vienna, Va.

"If it exists, then we are going to correct it," Graham said, " ... starting with government action, working with NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and educating farmers... . That is, if there is a problem."

Weeks later, Graham conceded that slaves do work on Ivory Coast cocoa farms. "Initially, there was quite a lot of debate about whether this was true and how serious it was," he said Friday. " ... Now we are not debating that this is true. We're accepting that this is a fact."

"It's not clear how big or small it is," said John Faulkner, spokesman for Godiva chocolates, which uses a lot of Ivory Coast cocoa because of the fine flavor. "There are people who have been to the Ivory Coast 50 times and say they have never seen this... But just because you haven't seen the problem doesn't mean there isn't the problem. Let's be clear about that."

Faulkner said Godiva's cocoa supplier, Barry Callebaut, based in Zurich, Switzerland, gave assurances that "No slavery practices have been reported and none would be tolerated. "

But, he conceded, "I can't guarantee anything. Candidly ... to be able to sit here and guarantee that it is not happening, it's not being realistic."

"What we don't control we cannot guarantee," said Willy Geraerts, director of corporate quality for Barry Callebaut. "When the cocoa comes to us, it is such a long chain, and before it gets to us, controlled by middlemen along the way. I don't think that any company today ... can give this guarantee."

People who buy the finished chocolate product say they are largely powerless to address the issue, if they know about it at all.

"We are definitely aware of it and definitely concerned about it, but being a very small voice to our suppliers you can't easily go demanding a lot of things," said Tim Bergquist, president of International Chocolate Co. in Salt Lake City. The company sells single-origin chocolates, including some made from Ivory Coast cocoa beans.

"It's more a matter of economics than a lack of principle," Bergquist said.

"We buy a finished product long beyond the bean," said Gary Regenbaum of Mom 'n Pops candy company of New Windsor, N.Y., which buys chocolate to coat its lollipops. "I have never considered where the beginning of this product came from... . I'll look into this and make every effort to stop it."

Most distant of all from the cocoa farm is the consumer, who has little reason to think about who harvested the cocoa beans that went into the gaily wrapped chocolate at the candy counter.

"In Canada, Europe, America, what we have on our shelves is cheap, such as coffee, chocolate bars," said Michel Larouche, the West Africa regional director for Save the Children Canada. "If we put a stop to child trafficking the prices of certain things -- cotton shirts, coffee, candy bars -- will rise. The reality is if your products are this cheap, it's because of this situation."

"Are (the companies) responsible?" Larouche said. "It's hard to say one is responsible. It's easier to look at who is not responsible.

"Every time one closes his eyes and buys a product made by children, then he is also responsible. He becomes an accomplice."

By Sumana Chatterjee and Sudarsan Raghavan

COCOA Q&A:

QUESTION: So now I understand that the chocolate products in my grocery store may be made from cocoa beans harvested by child slaves in the African country of Ivory Coast. What can I do to stop something that's happening so far away?

ANSWER: The first thing many people think of is a boycott; they'd stop buying chocolate. But experts say that probably would be counterproductive, hurting the very people you are trying to help.

A more effective means of fighting slavery may be the pressure of public opinion. You can write to the companies that make the chocolate products you eat, demanding that they take steps to halt slavery and assure themselves and consumers that they will deal only with farmers who don't use slaves. You also can write to your members of Congress and to the White House.

Q: Why not a boycott? The last time I found out something I didn't like about a product, I just stopped buying it.

A: Lots of experts say boycotting chocolate could make things worse for the boys working on cocoa farms. People from Anti-Slavery International and UNICEF and cocoa industry analysts say that if lots of people stop buying chocolate, it could drive down the price of cocoa. That means less money for everyone involved in cocoa production, especially the farmers. Farmers who use slaves already say it's because they don't make enough to pay the boys. If the farmers make even less money, more boys may work for nothing.

Q: How can I find out if my favorite brand uses cocoa from Ivory Coast?

A: Most chocolate manufacturers use some Ivory Coast cocoa because their particular chocolate recipe is a blend of beans from all over the world. Unless the label specifically says it uses only cocoa from some other country, there's a good chance your chocolate has Ivory Coast cocoa in it.

If you want to be sure, you can contact the chocolate company. But many of them wouldn't tell us when we asked them the same question.

Q: Is there any way to know whether a chocolate made with Ivory Coast cocoa came from a farm with slave labor?

A: There's simply no way to tell. Cocoa beans picked by slaves are mixed in with those picked by paid workers. That happens out in the farm regions and at the warehouses in Ivory Coast. So the slave cocoa beans could be in any sack, in any shipment, and wind up in any chocolate bar or fudge brownie mix. The cocoa suppliers say they can't guarantee that their shipments don't contain slave cocoa.

Q: Is anyone doing anything about this?

A: A few things are starting to happen. Many U.S. chocolate companies say they can do little on their own and are looking for answers from their trade group, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association. When we first started asking CMA officials about the slaves we'd seen in Ivory Coast, they said they were unaware of any evidence of slavery. Since then, the group has acknowledged there might be a problem, and this month it decided to spend at least $1 million for a survey of who is working on Ivory Coast farms. The study, which will be conducted by governments and private groups, will survey 2,000 of Ivory Coast's cocoa farms, plus 1,000 cocoa farms in neighboring Ghana.

The trade group also is working with the World Cocoa Foundation, a nonprofit organization it set up to promote cocoa farming, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the agency that delivers U.S. assistance to developing countries, to encourage farmers not to exploit child labor.

European cocoa companies also have agreed to study the problem. They propose helping the Ivorian government to revamp its agriculture system, to see if farmers can be organized into cooperatives that would monitor working conditions on the farms. That may eliminate the need for middlemen who take a cut of the profit from cocoa sales.

And in recent months, the Ivorian government has begun sending suspected slaves back to their home countries, particularly Mali and Burkina Faso. The government is working through groups of Malian elders who live in the cocoa region and have been increasingly active in trying to find Malian boys who are enslaved or mistreated. They then alert Ivorian police, who may raid the farms and help send the boys home.

Q: What about the U.S. government? Is it doing anything?

A: In 1999, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order prohibiting federal agencies from buying products made using forced or indentured child labor, but cocoa and chocolate are not on the list of banned products. The federal government does buy cocoa products -- the Defense Department alone buys tons for the troops.

The Labor Department is spending $4.3 million on programs to eliminate child labor in West Africa. But it can't spend any money in Ivory Coast because the U.S. government banned direct help to that country in December 1999 after its democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup. So the Labor Department is working with the International Labor Organization, a global workers' rights agency, which in turn works with organizations in Ivory Coast to train people not to exploit children.

Q: Is cocoa the only crop harvested by slaves in Ivory Coast?

A: No. Coffee and cotton are, too, according to the State Department's Human Rights Report. Some cocoa farms grow coffee as well.

There's a growing movement in the coffee industry called "fair trade," in which companies work to be sure their farmers get paid enough for their crops and that provides an incentive for the farmers to pay their workers. The fair trade coffee movement is widespread among Latin American farmers. There's a very small cocoa fair-trade movement, but it's mostly confined to European companies that sell chocolate using cocoa that doesn't come from Ivory Coast. There is no fair-trade American chocolate or cocoa.