Child labour still rife in chocolate production

Multinational companies such as Hershey, Mars and Nestlé have pledged for almost 20 years to eliminate child labour from their supply chains. However, a new report in The Washington Post finds that there is still an epidemic of child labour in cocoa production.

The world’s chocolate companies have missed deadlines to uproot child labor from their cocoa supply chains in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Next year, they face another target date and, industry officials indicate, they probably will miss that, too. The authors of the report, Peter Whoriskey and Rachel Siegel write that:

“In few industries, experts say, is the evidence of objectionable practices so clear, the industry’s pledges to reform so ambitious and the breaching of those promises so obvious."

Sustain member the Fairtrade Foundation works to put an end to child labour in supply chains.