This next article is from http://www.nl-aid.org/domain/child/the-child-slavery-behind-your-chocolate/ The Child Slavery Behind Your Chocolate Posted on | oktober 25, 2011 | 2 Comments October could almost be designated “candy month” in the United States, thanks to the consumer buying power and commercialization of Halloween. As I wrote in my post, Trick-or-Treating Minus the Slavery, the chocolate industry in the United States alone is a$13 billion industry. It is led by Hershey’s, which holds 42.5% of the U.S. chocolate market. Yet the global cocoa industry often traffics children to work as slaves, according to UNICEF (The United Nation’s Children’s Fund). In West Africa, 200,000 children are living in conditions of forced labor and slavery on cocoa farms. Sadly, Hershey’s uses large amounts of cocoa harvested in the Ivory Coast, which according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), produces 43% of the worlds cocoa. The Hershey Company has been aware that their products are tainted by slavery and child labor rooted at the beginning of their supply chain since at least 2001, when along with the other major chocolate companies, made a commitment to end child and forced labor in their cocoa supply chains. In September 2001, chocolate and cocoa industry representatives signed the Harkin Engel Protocol, developed by Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Eliot Engel, in an effort to eliminate child labor in the industry. The protocol has a six-point approach to solve the problem, including a time sensitive process to establish credibility and eliminate the use of child slavery. The protocol was signed by the industry’s large cocoa producing companies and set forth an action plan to eliminate the worst forms of child labor and forced labor from cocoa farms worldwide by 2005. However, Hershey’s has continued to produce their products undaunted by the knowledge that their profits come with a high human cost. They continue to source cocoa from this region without ensuring that child labor exploitation does not occur in the production of the cocoa they use. I have known about this for awhile now but I was talking with some of you in class about it. Also the professor has mentioned it, so now that you know where it comes from does it make a difference? Would you buy your chocolate from somewhere else if you knew that it wasn't produced by slaves despite the difference in cost? I know that I really love chocolate and was upset to learn that the chocolate I eat is produced by child slave labor. Since this article Hershey's has made one of their candy bars through free trade and only as an incentive from activist groups. The slave trade is all around us and despite what we may want to believe even you and I are a part of it.