![\"chocolateday.png\"](\"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/chocolateday.png\")
here\u2019s no doubt that humans love chocolate. Globally, we consume $80 to $100 billion worth of it<\/a> a year. Despite its popularity and the joy it gives us, there is a dark side to chocolate: cocoa, its main ingredient, is often produced by child labor. The US Department of Labor (USDOL)<\/a> identifies this as the case in six countries: Cameroon, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In two of those countries, the C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire and Nigeria, USDOL notes there is forced labor on cocoa plantations. There is also evidence that thousands of children have been trafficked to work on cocoa plantations from neighboring countries Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo.<\/p>\n
Exploitation in chocolate\u2019s supply chain became hotly discussed in 2000 and 2001 when media reports about wide-spread child labor in the West Africa nations of Ghana and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, where the majority of cocoa was being produced, were published.<\/p>\n
Congressional leaders were alarmed about the reports. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) introduced legislation that would require child-labor free chocolate to be recognized with a label. The measure passed the US House of Representatives but it didn\u2019t take long for everyone to realize that wanting child-labor free cocoa and delivering on that promise were two very different things. The nature of cocoa farming made it a very difficult crop to remove child labor from cocoa production. The region features hundreds of thousands of small cocoa farms operating in jungle-like topography. The region is lacking much infrastructure, including thousands of schools that would be needed to educate all the children working in cocoa.<\/p>\n
In Congress, the chocolate companies hired two former majority leaders to lobby against the labelling requirement. A different course was needed. Rep. Engel and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) worked to establish an innovative multi-stakeholder initiative to begin efforts to reduce child labor.<\/p>\n
The so-called \u201cHarkin-Engel Protocol\u201d<\/a> launched in September 2001 brought together eight of the largest chocolate companies, the government of the C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, the International Labour Organization\u2019s International Programme to Eliminate Child Labour, the International Cocoa Organization, Free the Slaves, The Child Labor Coalition and the National Consumers League. Other signatories included Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), Harkin, and Engel. The agreement committed industry to work with NGOs and the West African governments to remedy abusive forms of child labor.<\/p>\n