Chocolate makes the world go round (but is it fair?)

Meera Atkinson

Chocolate Box Everyone loves chocolate. It is the food of lovers, the favourite of children, and the consolation of many. But where does it come from and what’s all the fuss about fair trade?

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First document in use around 1100 BC 1100 BC, chocolate is one of the most popular foods in the world. But few of us, when ordering a hot chocolate or blowing out candles on our chocolate birthday cake, consider that what we’re about to consume is very likely 'blood chocolate', which comes with a tragic and violent history for a significant number of very poor people in West Africa; the raw cocoa product is grown in tropical areas and is all too often harvested by unjust means.

The majority of the world’s cocoa is grown in the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire (formerly Ivory Coast) where child labour is commonplace. The US Department of State estimates that more than 190,000 children are exploited, beaten, abused, exposed to pesticides, malnourished and uneducated in the service of cocoa production. It has also been reported that profits from the cocoa contribute to the funding of armed conflict.

The good news is that it appears the $70 billion chocolate industry is beginning to change its ways.
Mark Zirnsak, Director of the Justice and International Mission Unit in the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, and spokesperson for Stop the Traffik Australia, credits a shift in strategy on the part of anti-slavery campaigners.

“Chocolate companies are starting to move and I think that’s largely because, globally, non-government organisations, concerned about slavery and child trafficking and labour, changed tactics and started targeting individual companies rather than just targeting the industry as a whole,” Mark says. “Companies are going under the microscope and having heat applied to them.”

Cadbury was the first to respond. “They were least resistant to doing the right thing and full credit to them for taking responsibility," says Mark. "Mars followed suit and we’ve started to see Nestle as the next global target. In Australia Nestle has said it has entered into discussions with fair trade organisations about buying fair trade-certified cocoa, but we don’t think they’ll move across the line without community pressure to make that happen,” he says. “They are seen as a tougher nut to crack because they have less internal desire to address these problems compared to other companies.”

Cadbury recently announced that its milk chocolate line in Australia would be certified fair trade as of Easter 2010. Cadbury fair trade milk chocolate is already available from UK supermarkets. But, while the UK is committed to going fair trade across the board in stages, there is currently not enough fair trade cocoa available. Mars have given themselves until 2020 to shift to fair trade over their entire production line.

Mark believes that all consumers have a responsibility to support those companies that are stepping up to the plate. And, he says, Christian consumers have a particular tradition to uphold.

“We need to take responsibility for the decisions we make and the contribution we make to people’s lives and livelihoods. It’s our responsibility not to purchase products that use slavery, and to put pressure on those companies,” he says.

“The anti-slavery movement within the Christian churches goes back at least 200 years. We have a clear understanding of how slavery is a contravention of our faith. The irony here is that Christians 200 years ago were a big part of the movement to abolish slavery. That involved people at the grass roots level boycotting products that used slavery. There were sugar boycotts in the UK; and in France plantation owners were shunned when they returned from the colonies because of their slavery practices.”

Mark encourages people to get involved in the Stop the Traffik campaign and to visit the website. “We have a model to follow and it would be disappointing if modern consumers can’t do as well as our counterparts 200 years ago.”

Unpack the issues...

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In what ways can you help the modern anti-slavery movement?
Have you ever made a purchase of a product with questionable ethics but justified it or made up an excuse to buy it just because you wanted it?
Do you think that people with a Christian faith have a greater responsibility than those without to make ethical/moral choices?

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