Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Chocolate and You

Like eating chocolates? Did you know that there is a very large association between chocolate and child labour? Cote d'Ivoire is the leading exporter of cocoa beans to the world market and, most probably, the chocolate manufacturing company, whose chocolate you are relishing, gets its raw materials form this West African country. I believe that children from the age of 12 to 16 are working under the most inhumane conditions and extreme abuse in cocoa farms to harvest the beans. Some times the only food that these children get is corn paste, a far cry from chocolates. They probably do not even know what chocolate is.

It is an irony that children are forced to labour to produce something that is associated with pleasure. This only goes to show that misery in one part of the world is associated with pleasure in another part. Child labour is then, not just the problem of that country which allows its practice, but to the entire human community that allows such atrocities to take place.

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