886

Candy company Mars uses cocoa harvested by kids in Ghana, CBS News investigation finds (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/world@lemmy.world

138 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com 26 points 1 year ago

I absolutely detest these incompetent trash journalists pretending like this is JUST a mars problem.

If you've ever eaten chocolate or seen chocolate on a shelf a child slave was used to acquire it.

There is not a single large-scale chocolate operation that does not utilize child slavery in the supply chain and pretending like this is 'only a mars issue' is fucking disgusting

[-] cleverusernametry@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Source? Especially that it's slavery and not just the children working on the family farm

[-] PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago

John Oliver did a Halloween episode on the cocoa industry, and yea its slavery by a different name. Kids are getting sent to the "family farm" but never see their family again

https://youtu.be/FwHMDjc7qJ8?si=tmT-ryxtXdTdAq0a

[-] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 2 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/FwHMDjc7qJ8?si=tmT-ryxtXdTdAq0a

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[-] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 1 year ago

Here's a wide variety of sources/dates to get you started since this is something that, much like the oil industry and climate change, has been massively lied about in the media in order to prevent any action from forming against the associated companies because that would actually negatively impact them. (Maybe, I personally doubt it since all 'off brand' and 'no name brand' shit is just name brand with shittier packaging now days, there's zero competition in this market and zero incentive for these corporations to improve when all they have to do is cause a controversy to offend an active group on twitter to have any serious discourse of their court cases disappear in a jumble of brainless arguments over superficial garbage).

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57522186 https://cocoarunners.com/chocopedia/the-dark-history-of-chocolate-slavery/ https://foodispower.org/human-labor-slavery/slavery-chocolate/ https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face-landmark-child-slavery-lawsuit-in-us

Additionally an honors thesis with all the associated references inside: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=honorscollege_ehc

There's only extremely small farms that are not run by slavery and that chocolate does not make it to north american or european markets, regardless of what the stickers say.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-nestle-in-child-slavery-case.html https://www.courthousenews.com/candy-giants-sued-over-failure-to-end-child-labor-on-chocolate-plantations-in-ghana/

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-416_i4dj.pdf https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2022/06/28/backed-by-big-law-hershey-nestle-dodge-second-child-slavery-case/

The sugar industry and all related industries are industries of death, they only profit by stealing tax incentives after bribing politicians and using slavery, they don't need or want to make money they're just in it for the mergers and acquisitions which can suppress competition, hide losses, and increase their own power over the markets they work in, at the expense of everyone's health (with the amount of sugar in food these days) and at the expense of peoples freedom.

Here's an investigation by cbs that was released yesterday which has child slaves (as young as five years old) active as late as last week: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/candy-company-uses-cocoa-harvested-by-child-labor-cbs-news-investigation/ar-AA1kKztT

And here's basically the same findings from 20 years ago https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cocoa-and-slavery/ which, of course, all the associated companies said they 'fixed the problem with our third party suppliers that were using slavery without telling us' and then they get off by buying the judge.

Slavery never stopped we just exported it to get people to stop bitching.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago

Fair trade chocolate exists of course

[-] IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Tony's Chocolonely whenever possible

[-] danciestlobster@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Fair trade is quite a fallable system too unfortunately. And the honest answer is it isn't truly known what chocolate has slavery involved for just regular child labor but it is fairly safe to assume most at least are likely to involve it, even fair trade and other similar certifications

[-] PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

Yea apparently the farms know in advance about the inspections and move the kids somewhere else during inspection and they're back the next day.

this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023

886 points (99.2% liked)

World News

39376 readers

2482 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.