OK; in the interest of equal time, Rat will gloat over the other crook Whitman endorsing her.
So you support child slavery?
mcclatchydc.com
Here's what companies involved in chocolate production had to say about young slaves being used on farms in Ivory Coast, world's largest grower of cocoa beans.
grist.org
Even worse: For African children, chocolate poses a much bigger threat than just cavities. A 2011 Tulane University study found a “projected total of 819,921 children in Ivory Coast and 997,357 children in Ghana worked on cocoa-related activities” in 2007-2008. (I use the term “work” loosely: That implies payment, when most of these children are in fact slaves who are imprisoned on farms, beaten for trying to leave, and denied any wages.) NGOs, politicians, and even a Hershey shareholder have tried to force the industry to change, but so far, these efforts have been stymied by the powerful chocolate barons, who are surprisingly evil for folks who make candy for a living. An example: In 2001, after heavily publicized reports of child labor in the cocoa industry, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) tried to pass legislation to require chocolate companies to show that they were “child labor free” and label their products as such. But after intense industry pushback, the Harkin-Engel Protocol that passed made certification voluntary; the idea of labeling products was abandoned entirely. In the more than 10 years since it was signed, the new rules have done almost nothing to liberate child workers in the chocolate industry. |
