The Pros And Cons Of Cocoa Beans

Seventy two percent of the cocoa beans used by large chocolate companies come from the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Before purchasing a chocolate from brands like Hershey 's or Nestle that we enjoy and love, think again as it is not as innocent as we may think. Many of these chocolate companiesuse child labor practices to processes their chocolate fromthe cocoa beans produced in the Ivory Coast, but that needs to stop. The Cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast are harvested by adolescents who are treated like slaves and debased daily from their human rights.Child labor and child slavery is a prevalent issue in the Ivory Coast, the top cocoa producing country in the world. This makes it almost inevitable for companies such as Mars, Nestle, and Hershey’s

To begin with, youngsters are being treated harshly on a regular basis, and are made to climb trees with machetes to harvest the cocoa. Once the cocoa has been knocked off the trees, the children cut open the pods with machetes to remove the cocoa beans. According to Aly Diabate, a freed slave, told reporters that beating became part of his life, as anytime they loaded him with bags of cocoa beans and he fell while carrying them, no one would help; instead they beat him repetitively until he picked it up again (Slaves to chocolate, 2002). Also, most of these youngsters do not get paid or are paid very less, therefore they cannot afford a bus ticket to run away, and if they get caught they are beaten to death. Moreover, many of them stay with the plantation until they die; consequently, they never see their families again. As a result, many of the children suffer from psychological effects and are left with multiple scars on their hands and arms from the machetes and the

The initiative acts to promote practices that reduces child labor and protects them. By 2007, the international cocoa initiative supported the construction of 497 classrooms, helped train 391 children and much more. "ICI has worked in more than 1,000 cocoa-growing communities, where it has supported more than 3,000 community development actions to benefit more than 1 million people, more than half of whom were children"(International Cocoa Initiative,2014). The reason behind these projects is to safeguard the child 's right and to prevent children from being baited by the cocoa industry. As a result of ICI’s assistance, more than 50,000 of these children now have improved access to quality