The U.S. Department of Labor announced in December of 2020 that 1.5 million children are working illegally and a percentage of those children have been trafficked in and held as slaves.

These children are vulnerable to brutal labor practices, including trafficking and slavery.

Candy companies--including but not limited to Mars, Nestlé, Hershey, Cargill, Cadbury, Mondelēz and Barry Callebaut--have admitted accountability and promised to remedy this situation.Sadly, 20 years has passed since this agreement and the numbers of exploited children has only increased.

Additionally, the abject poverty these farmers are forced to endure in has also resulted in deforestation of sensitive and important national forests.

The candy industry is a US $100-billion-dollar industry. It should have changed.

At the very least the companies profiting from these children are the ones that have to fix it. They can start by paying a lot more for the beans that they buy. When a farmer is making less than $2.00, they can’t afford to hire adult labor.

Help us make this happen.

Awareness is an important part of social change. Reverse Trick or Treating is an easy way to spread it and educate others. Just attach a small not to each piece of Halloween candy you are passing out that explains why you are not giving out industrial chocolate this year. Click Here to receive a template of notes sent to your email. Thank you! — Ayn

CALL TO ACTION! PLEASE HELP.

This will only take a few minutes.

Nestlé apparently and in our opinion is lying on their website in reference to Doe vs. Nestlé.

They say this: “Did the United States Supreme Court rule on Nestlé child labor accusations?

In June 2021, theSupreme Court agreed there is no basis for this lawsuit to proceed against Nestlé. Nestlé never engaged in the egregious child labor alleged in this suit, and we remain unwavering in our dedication to combatting child labor in the cocoa industry and to our ongoing work with partners in government,NGOsand industry to tackle this complex, global issue.”

We don’t agree with that statement at all. We need you to contact Nestlé and voice your opinion. Here is a link to their contact page: www.nestleusa.com/info/contact-us-landing

Thank you so much for considering this action! Remember, we really have all of the power to turn this around! Thank you! — Ayn

This is a letter that you can copy and paste:

Dear Nestlé,

I just read on your website your claim that “theSupreme Court[in its June 2021 ruling]agreed there is no basis for this lawsuit to proceed against Nestlé. Nestlé never engaged in the egregious child labor alleged in this suit, and we remain unwavering in our dedication to combatting child labor in the cocoa industry and to our ongoing work with partners in government,NGOsand industry to tackle this complex, global issue.”

This, like many claims Nestléhas made across the years about its “progress” on ending child slavery since it promised in 2001 when it signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol to end its reliance on the “worst forms of child labor” to harvest its cocoa, appears to be false for the following reasons:

There is absolutely no reference in the Supreme Court’s decision that exonerates Nestlé of the charge that Nestlé profits from child slavery in its cocoa production. The majority opinion by Justice Thomas expresses no view whatsoever about the charge of slavery. Instead, the Court held on very narrow grounds that the statute at issue, the Alien Tort Statute, does not apply extraterritorially because the former enslaved children point only to facts that Nestlé aided and abetted child slavery in Cote D’Ivoire, not in the United States as the statute requires. Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, 141 S.Ct. 1931, 1936-37 (2021). Justice Thomas specifically noted that a different statute, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), was the vehicle Congress passed “allowing plaintiffs to sue defendants who are involved indirectly with slavery.” Id. at 1939. As you know, eight formerly enslaved child laborers sued Nestlé and six other cocoa giants on February 12, 2021 for profiting from child slavery under the TVPRA. Resolving Nestlé’s culpability for child slavery is far from over.

At least five of the Justices explicitly rejected Nestlé ‘s outrageous argument that corporations are immune from child slavery under international law merely because they are corporations. See, e.g., Gorsuch, J., Concurring (141 S. Ct. at 1940-42); Alito, J., Dissenting (141 S. Ct. at 1950-51).

Nestlé cites as proof it is not using child labor “independent” monitoring by Rainforest Alliance and the Fair Labor Association. Nestlé is funding both of these organizations which creates a conflict of interest and certainly disqualifies them as “independent” monitors. Further, at the end of the day, they aren't helping the farmers as they are still not even close to making a living wage.

The fine print on your website makes clear that any supposed monitoring activity is done on a very small percentage of the plantations you source from. Nestlé apparently has no idea what is happening on the vast majority of their plantations while they are misleading the public by claiming they are not using child slaves.

The U.S. Department of Labor-funded study by the University of Chicago found in a report released in October 2020 that 1.56 million children are harvesting cocoa in Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana, and 95% of them are performing hazardous work. This is a damning verdict on the progress Nestlé claims to be making on eliminating child labor in its supply chain.

I would love to receive a clarification toyour assertionabovein light of the actual facts. If you can't come up with one,I think you should take downwhat appears to me to be a false and misleadingstatement. We consumers have been lied to long enough.As you know the numbers of exploited children keeps rising despite themanyinitiatives that have been announced by you and the rest of the companies that signed theHarkin Engel Protocol.

Sincerely,

We are here to help others get the word out. We are available to for speaking engagements, interviews and look forward to collaborating with you on your ideas. Please feel free to contact us at anytime by email or phone 760-715-4618 or by filling out the form on the About Us page.

Chocolate consumers have real power. Let's use it together to help these children.

Ways you can help make a huge difference:

Ethical egg hunt. Ahead of Easter - who sourced your chocolate?

by Quota.Media: news and events for food systems professionals

The supermarket shelves are heaving with Easter eggs - but how ethical are they? We ask whether any were produced without slavery

Click here to watch a recorded version of this event

- We'll have Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director of IRAdvocates, who is behindthe class action by former child slavesagainst the world's chocolate giants

- Paul Schoenmakers, Chief Impact Officer for chocolate brand Tony's Chocolonely

- Ayn Riggs, activist and founder of our event sponsorSlave Free Chocolatejoins us

- BBC reporter Humphrey Hawksley, who has beenexposing child slaveryin the chocolate trade for 20 years

- We'll have Dan Crossley from theFood Ethics Council

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT

For Immediate Release Contact: Roy San Filippo
213-221-5712
April 7, 20201

SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS CONDEMN MULTINATIONAL CHOCOLATE COMPANIES FOR THEIR USE OF CHILD SLAVE LABOR

(San Francisco, California) In a groundbreaking resolution passed on Tuesday, April 6, San Francisco County Board of Supervisors called for Mars, Nestlé, and other major chocolate producers to immediately cease the use of child slave labor in their cocoa supply chains.

The Resolution describes the inhumane and illegal working conditions in today’s cocoa industry. Over 1.5 million children are illegally involved in cocoa harvesting and production, mainly in West African nations like Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, forced to endure hazardous working conditions for little or no pay.

Supervisor Dean Preston was a strong supporter of the resolution, arguing that it is past time for Mars, Nestlé, and other major chocolate producers to stop their use of child forced labor.

"The board passed a unanimous vote, a clear message to Mars and Nestlé that it’s time to stop utilizing child forced labor in global cocoa supply chains,” says Preston. “It’s a tragic reality for children in West Africa, and despite international condemnation and empty promises to change by these corporations, the issue persists.”

Despite decades of assurances that they will do better, major multinational chocolate companies like Mars, Nestlé, and Hershey have taken inadequate steps and ultimately failed to change their cocoa sourcing patterns in order to guarantee an ethical supply chain. According to Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director of IRAdvocates, these chocolate companies in particular have been full of empty promises when it comes to eradicating child slave labor in their supply chains.

“IRAdvocates and other organizations have been working for decades to get the large cocoa companies to keep their promise made in signing the 2001 Harkin-Engle Protocol to stop using child labor to harvest their cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire,” explains Collingsworth. “The cocoa companies have made crystal clear that they won't keep this promise unless a community devoted to ending child slavery in 2021 comes together to stop them.” Collingsworth hopes this recently passed resolution will serve as a model for concerned residents in cities and towns across the country.

Other chocolate companies— with much fewer resources than multinationals like Mars— are able to ethically source their cocoa; showing that slave free chocolate is an achievable goal.. Instead, major chocolate producers have consistently demonstrated that they care more about profit than they do about human welfare. Their race to source the cheapest possible cocoa, regardless of the human costs, has driven down industry standards and facilitated gross human rights violations that break international, domestic, and California law.

This resolution passed by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors is a strong step forward to show Mars, Nestlé, and other major chocolate producers that the residents of San Francisco are committed to holding companies responsible for their human rights violations.

Consumers have more power to create positive change than they might realize, explains Ayn Riggs, Executive Director of advocacy organization Slave Free Chocolate.

“Chocolate is a consumer product, which means when it comes to the eradication of child slavery in the industry, we, the consumers, have all of the power,” says Riggs. “And when this happens, it won't just be a win for the 1.5 million children working illegally in the chocolate industry but a win for humanity as well."

Hero’s spreading the word on Social Media:

Music, dance, comedy, acting are all creative mediums to communicate, inform and insight change. Your work as activism! Check out Torry’s work on IG at @torryhermann and see how she transposed her style into a powerful message. Are you an artist with a following and have an idea? Please email us and become an activist with your art. EMAIL

Héros on the ground:

Traffickers arrested in Ivory Coast operation targeting child trafficking and forced labour.

More than 48 children have been rescued and 22 people arrested following the first operational phase of Project AKOMA, targeting child trafficking and exploitation in Côte d’Ivoire.

Project AKOMA is the first joint initiative between INTERPOL and International Organization for Migration to fight child trafficking and exploitation in West Africa.

The operation was backed by the First Lady’s office, the Minister of State for Employment, Social Affairs and Vocational Training and the Minister for Solidarity, Family, Women and Children as well as senior regional officials.

Officers from INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau (NCB) and Regional Bureau in Abidjan assisted in coordinating the operation, along with the Ivorian Inter-Ministerial Committee against human trafficking.
The operation also involved specialist officers from INTERPOL’s Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation (HTCE) unit.