CHILD SLAVERY IN AFRICA
by Levi Anthony
A thriving trade in human traffic has developed in many parts of Africa mainly because of the grinding poverty in which many Africans live. Oftentimes, slave traffickers fool parents into selling their children, telling them that they are being sent away to get a good education. In the end, these children are sold across Africa and as far away as Europe. The countries from which children are smuggled include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, and Nigeria.
Many of us in the United States were shocked recently when we learned from news reports that our favorite chocolate bar might have been made with child labor. US chocolate manufacturers purchased most of their cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast - the world's largest producer of cocoa beans and where child labor on plantations is prevalent.
Even though child slavery is illegal in the Ivory Coast, the government said the practice continues because the foreign multi-national corporations (such as Hershey's) do not pay enough for the cocoa beans thus forcing farmers to use child labor. It is believed that over 15,000 children work in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast. Many are imprisoned and beaten if they try to escape.
Because of the bad publicity, the chocolate manufacturers, human rights organization, and the government of the Ivory Coast recently signed an agreement to work toward ending child slavery in the chocolate industry.
June 11, 2002 | 
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