This is for my ELA class, we all had to write an argumentative article about the use of chocolate. Our teacher already chose our side for us, which luckily is the side I’m on. Also, I’m done with the assignment and it’s due today, I’m just genuinely curious about how y’all think of it. (My friend said that it was college-level and it was too long)
Also, I’m hand-typing this as I’m on my iPad and the article is on my school computer. I could just copy-and-paste, but I’d rather hand-type it because on my school computer, the organization is messy. (My teacher won’t let us delete the outline)
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Imagine you’re eating a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar. As you bite into the chocolate bar, you taste the sweetness and creaminess of the chocolate. The chocolate bar makes you feel happy, and you continue eating the chocolate bar until it’s all gone. Then, you wonder, how did they get this cocoa? That cocoa in that chocolate bar just so happens to be sourced halfway across the world… by children.
Yes, children. Every day, 300,000 children in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Ghana, and Nigeria are forced to pick cocoa beans that have been sprayed with poisonous pesticides. 6,000 of those children are basically slaves - they work 12 hours a day without getting paid, they barely get fed, they sleep in unclean rooms, and they’re sometimes whipped. Most of the other children have to work on their family farm, where they sell every cocoa bean possible to survive. These children, who could have had an opportunity to go to school and be fed enough food daily, among other necessities, are instead robbed of their childhoods and forced to pick cocoa beans on farms for companies like Hershey’s and Mars. Life for farmers is not much better as they only get paid between $30 and $100 a year, which is not enough money to survive with every basic necessity a human needs. The working conditions on cocoa farms are unsafe, and the use of child labor is concerning.
Child labor is an extremely concerning issue. One reason child labor is concerning is because, “Every day in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon, about 300,000 children pick cocoa beans that will be sold to big chocolate companies. Most of the children work on their families’ farms. They need to sell every bean to make money for their families to survive. School is out of the question. Worse, about 6,000 of these children are slaves. They sleep in dirty rooms, work 12-hour days without pay, are fed very little, and are sometimes whipped.” (Chocolate from Children, 3)
This piece of evidence proves that children are indeed being treated horribly. These children pick cocoa beans to survive. They have to sell every bean to raise money for their family; without the children working, their family wouldn’t survive. But that’s not the worst part - 6,000 children are child slaves. They live on unsanitary cocoa farms, working long, hard days without pay. They barely even get fed for their hard work. And worse, they sometimes get whipped. Imagine working 12 hours a day picking cocoa beans without pay or food, and then getting whipped. It doesn’t feel good, does it?
Another reason child labor is concerning is because, “12-year old Sametta lives in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. She wakes up at 4:00 a.m., eats millet porridge, then walks two miles to her family’s cocoa bean field. For the next 12 hours she picks cocoa pods and breaks them open so she can scoop out the 30–50 seeds, or ‘beans’, inside. About 400 beans are needed to make one pound of chocolate. Sametta does not go to school. Her family needs her to work in order for them to survive. Her health is at risk because she uses a sharp machete to harvest the cocoa pods, which are sprayed with poisonous pesticides.” (Is It Fair to Eat Chocolate?, 2)
This piece of evidence takes a look inside the life of a child working on a cocoa farm. These children have to get up at 4 AM, and eat a basic breakfast that does not provide much food. Then, they have to walk a long distance while basically starving to death. This child in particular walks two entire miles to her family farm. Once there, the children work for 12 hours picking cocoa pods and breaking them open with sharp machetes. They scoop out anywhere from 30 to 50 beans, and 400 beans are required for one pound of chocolate. The cocoa pods are also sprayed with poisonous pesticides, which poses a huge health risk to the young children who, in addition to being robbed of their education, are now unhealthy due to the work. Child labor is extremely concerning.
The working conditions on cocoa farms are unsafe. One reason the working conditions are unsafe is because, “In the Supreme Court case Nestlé USA and Cargill v. Del, six people from Mali sought damages from Nestlé and Cargill for being trafficked into the Ivory Coast as children and forced to work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast. The formerly enslaved plaintiffs described how guards would punish child workers who attempted to flee with atrocities such as forcing them to drink urine or cutting open their feet. If the guards thought they weren’t working quickly enough, they would beat them with tree branches. The plaintiffs also described how they were kept in locked rooms at night and only given scraps of food to eat.” (Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry, 28)
This evidence shows that children are being trafficked from their homes into the Ivory Coast. They were locked into their rooms at night so they couldn’t escape, and if the guards thought that the slaves were not working hard enough, then the slaves got beaten with tree branches. You can’t even escape from this abuse - if the children attempted to escape the cocoa farm, the guards would make the children drink urine or they would cut open their feet.
Another reason the working conditions are unsafe is because, “The farm owners using child labor usually provide the children with the cheapest food available, such as corn paste or the cassava and bananas that grow in the surrounding forest. In some cases, the children sleep on wooden planks in small windowless buildings with no access to clean water or sanitary bathrooms.” (Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry, 16)
This shows how and what children are fed and their sleeping situations. The children, in addition to being fed only tiny scraps of food, are fed corn paste and bananas, which are not filling at all. Hence, many of these children are starving due to being fed almost nothing and also basically working themselves to death. The sleep isn’t much better either as in some cases, in addition to being locked in their rooms at night, the children sleep in small windowless buildings on wooden planks. Add to the fact that they don’t get fresh air, clean water, or sanitary bathrooms and you’ve got unsafe working conditions in cocoa farms. Working conditions on cocoa farms are unsafe.
The huge chocolate companies think that chocolate is too expensive. This claim isn’t true because the chocolate industry is very profitable - the industry makes around $100 billion a year. For example, Ferrero is a chocolate company that uses slavery. They could provide a living income (able to access basic human rights) for its 90,000 cocoa farmers and still pay the Ferrero family $233 million a year. The big chocolate companies claim that chocolate is expensive, but seeing as how they’re very profitable, the chocolate companies are basically greedy money-making machines.
One reason big chocolate companies support child labor (indirectly) is because, “Despite their role in contributing to child labor, slavery, and human trafficking, the chocolate industry has not taken significant steps to remedy the problem. Within their $103 billion-per-year industry, chocolate companies have the power to end the use of child labor and slave labor by paying cocoa farmers a living income for their product.” (Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry, 74)
This evidence supports that chocolate companies can end child labor but choose not to. The chocolate industry as a whole makes $103 billion a year, so they can easily pay every cocoa farmer a living income, and hence, the cocoa farmers can send their children to school and end child slavery. But the chocolate industry, despite playing a huge role in child labor and human trafficking, still chooses to support those abusive actions because they want to make as much profit as possible.
Another reason big chocolate companies support child labor indirectly is because, “We also know from watching the largest chocolate manufacturers postpone a commitment to end the worst forms of child labor in cocoa for more than 15 years that promises it makes about its efforts mean nothing. In 2001, heads of Mars, Hershey, Nestlé USA, and other companies signed a deal called the Harkin-Engel Protocol, pledging to end ‘the worst forms of child labor’ in their cocoa suppliers in four years. In 2005, they missed the deadline to end child labor in their cocoa supply, and proceeded to miss deadlines in 2008 and 2010. The chocolate industry then scaled back its ‘goal’ to reducing child labor only by 70% in 2020, and by that year, the amount of child labor had increased.” (Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry, 45)
This shows that the big chocolate companies know that child labor is a problem. They know that they can easily end labor. But they won’t. They really just want their cheap chocolate to make big profits, but the companies mislead the public and they want the public to think that they care about ending child labor, when in reality they don’t want to end child labor. Even when they agreed to reduce child labor by 70%, child labor actually increased. These chocolate companies - they try to make you think that they want to end child labor, but they don’t. They only care about their precious little profits. Chocolate companies think chocolate is too expensive, so they use child labor.
Big chocolate companies like Hershey’s, Mars, and Nestle know it: They source their cocoa using child labor and slavery. And they know about the unsafe working conditions on cocoa farms - children are barely fed, they don’t get paid, and if they even try to escape, their feet get cut open. And the companies tell the public they are going to end child labor, but they haven’t. Working conditions on cocoa farms are unsafe and hazardous, and the use of child labor is concerning.
Over 300,000 children every day work on their family farms, trying to sell every cocoa bean they can to help their families survive. An additional 6,000 children pick cocoa beans for 12 hours without getting paid, and while being fed very little and having no access to sanitary bathrooms or even bathrooms at all. School is far out of the question for these children. As for cocoa farmers, they only get paid $30 to $100 a year, and that’s while the chocolate industry is making over $100 billion in that same time period. Chocolate companies know about this concerning issue, and they still continue to use unpaid child slavery while not paying cocoa farmers enough money to make a living income.
After you find out that the company who you bought your chocolate bar from uses child slavery knowingly (and willingly), your birthday rolls around. You open your present and you get a lot of chocolate - but it’s provided by Hershey’s and Mars. Knowing that they use child labor, you throw the chocolate away. You may have thrown your present away, but it certainly is better than supporting the slavery of children and the exploitation of cocoa farmers. Immediately after you throw away your present, you step outside and talk to your neighbor, who is also outside. You tell your neighbor about the use of child slavery in chocolate, and the two of you plan a boycott. You and your neighbor contact everyone that the two of you know, and soon enough you have 50 people planning a boycott against Hershey’s, Mars, and Nestle. But you need more people. That’s where you, the reader, comes in. YOU can help out by telling your friends that big chocolate companies use child slavery. Eventually, YOU and your fellow comrades can boycott big chocolate and tell the chocolate companies to stop using child slavery, and pay their farmers enough to make a living income. Because who in their right mind would support unpaid child slavery and hazardous working conditions?
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This took me an hour to type out. Also, I went lazy in the refute paragraph (where it talks about the big chocolate companies).
