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On Passover: Considering Child Slavery on Cocoa Farms

by · April 2nd, 2009
Chocolate, Fair Trade, Food Justice, Pesach/Passover

Thank you Rodney North and Susan Sklar of Equal Exchange for this great guest post.  Rodney North is The Answer Man for Equal Exchange, and as such is a resource for the public, academics, and the media.  He has been with Equal Exchange since 1996, and has been Equal Exchange’s point person on the forced child labor issue for the past five years. Susan Sklar grew up as a member of a Reform synagogue in Scranton, PA and supported the United Farm Workers grape boycott through her temple youth group in the 1970’s.  She continues to advocate for social justice and food issues at Equal Exchange through its Interfaith Program.

chocolate stack

On Passover every Jew is obligated to imagine that he or she had once been a slave in the land of Egypt. We try to envision the experience of our ancestors: the sadness of their lives under brutal day-to-day work conditions.  It’s unfortunate that in order for Jews (and others) to imagine slavery, we only need to look at slave labor conditions for cocoa workers in West Africa today, where 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown for the chocolate candy that many of us enjoy eating.

In 2000, American and British journalists documented how adolescent and teenage boys were being lured into a life of hard and dangerous work on cocoa farms for minimal wages, food, or shelter. Children have been locked in sheds or huts, or beaten when they have tried to return to their families. The major chocolate companies: Hershey’s, Mars, Nestle, and others are aware of these intolerable practices and have been dragging their feet in efforts to stop them.

Over the past nine years, groups like the International Labor Rights Fund have been trying to pressure the chocolate industry to reform itself and to purchase from farms that provide fairly traded cocoa. These efforts have not succeeded. However, consumers may purchase fairly traded chocolate on an individual basis, targeting their dollars to cocoa growers that use fair labor practices and don’t exploit children and others.  Equal Exchange uses only fairly traded organic cocoa exclusively for our chocolate and cocoa line.  We work with five Fair Trade Certified cocoa co-operatives in The Dominican Republic, Peru, and Panama.

On Passover, we need to be aware that slavery continues to exist in the world today and to learn how to work toward eliminating it. You can help change the situation by becoming more informed, spreading the word, and buying only fairly traded chocolate products. When Jewish family members give fairly traded chocolate bars as Afikomen prizes at the Passover seder table, they are helping to reinforce the message that, “We do remember being slaves in the land of Egypt and for this reason we will work against slavery wherever we see it and in its many forms.”

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9 Responses to “On Passover: Considering Child Slavery on Cocoa Farms”

  1. Judith Says:
    April 3rd, 2009 at 5:41 am

    I’ve heard that the harvesting of cashews currently uses a lot of child labor. Is this true? Is there such a thing as fair trade cashews and where can I find them?

  2. Rodney North Says:
    April 3rd, 2009 at 9:43 am

    Fair Trade cashews are available in Europe, but not yet in North America.

    However, Equal Exchange does work with co-ops of pecan and almond growers Georgia and California. You can read more about these Fair Trade nuts at http://www.equalexchange.coop/dft

    Equal Exchange is also an investor and partner in an unique multi-stakeholder Fair Trade enterprise based in the UK called Liberation Foods, that specializes in Fair Trade cashews and peanuts. For the time being Liberation is focusing on serving the British market.

  3. Roxanne Magnuson Says:
    April 3rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Check out Just Cashews at http://justcashews.org/ for a good alternative. I have eaten these many times and they’re delicious! A worthy spend.

  4. The Shmethicist Says:
    April 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    I wrote about the importance of fair trade chocolate back around Halloween http://jcarrot.org/got-a-food-.....hmethicist – so I’m glad to see it afikomentioned again for this holiday. Seize the teachable moment, chowdown the delicious fair trade bar, and maybe shoot off a letter to some of the candy companies that are dragging their feet letting them know why you can’t buy their products any more. I recommend bars with at least 60% cocoa to get real riled up for a bout of angry consumer letter writing.

    But then, I am highly sensitive to caffeine.

  5. Eric Says:
    April 5th, 2009 at 10:38 pm

    yes. see my column in this month’s newsletter for details.

    I’m encouraging people to sign up for the event (and the nassau county bus!) directly through empire state pride agenda, and make sure to indicate on the form that they’re from RSNS.

    hope you can join us!

    -Eric

  6. Eric Says:
    April 5th, 2009 at 10:42 pm

    oops! pasted the wrong text after my first try was mysteriously rejected. that’ll teach me to comment so close to midnight! anyway, my original comment was a request for a kosher-for-passover fair trade chocolate bar from equal exchange (but equality & justice day [April 28th] is also a great way to stand up for freedom – the freedom to marry the person of our choice!)

  7. Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster Says:
    April 6th, 2009 at 8:38 am

    I was also going to ask for kosher for Passover fair trade chocolate. As someone trying to be an ethical consumer, I will choose fair trade over something that is organic but not fair trade: it is important to support living and sustainable wages, so that sustainable food is available to all. It is great when you can find food that is both organic and fair trade.

  8. Nina Says:
    April 6th, 2009 at 8:52 am

    I support and commend the efforts of all those trying to effect social justice. It is beautiful and insiring to see the growing number of Jews that truly want to help humanity. And while we know that we were slaves in Egypt and that Passover is the rememberence of our liberation from bondage we can neglect to reflect on the true reason G-d freed us from the Egyptians…to serve Him and accept His Torah (which serves to bring us spiritually close to Him). Wishing everyone a chag kasher v’samayach:)

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