‘Cadbury company accused of using child labor on cocoa farms in Ghana’ 10 April 2022

Cadbury, a British multinational candy company, faces fresh accusations of illegal child labor exploitation after a new TV documentary showed children as young as 10 using machetes to harvest cocoa pods. According to an episode titled, “Cadbury Exposed: Dispatches,” released by Channel 4 on Monday, April 4, the cocoa farmers are paid less than $3 per day, which makes hiring adult workers unaffordable. As a result, the children work in grueling conditions to help turn the bitter, African plant into sweet European desserts. “It’s horrifying to see these children using these long machetes, which are sometimes half their height,” Ayn Riggs said in a statement published by the Guardian, an internationally respected British news outlet.

… Yet over the last two decades, child labor in cocoa farms has only increased. Ghana and Ivory Coast are the two largest exporters of cocoa in the world. More than 1.5 million children were involved in the cocoa industry, according to a 2020 study by NORC, a social research group at the University of Chicago. Roughly 43 percent of those children were involved in hazardous work. The new TV documentary from Channel 4 showed children using sharp knives to open the cocoa pods. They were also filmed swinging long sticks with blades tied to them, though none of the children were wearing protective clothing… The daughter of one farmer said she had sliced her foot open while using a long machete in another case of child labor. She also claimed to be supplying Mondelez International, parent company of Cadbury.

… For its part, a spokesperson for Mondelez International downplayed the accusations while expressing concern for them. “We’re deeply concerned by the incidents documented in the Dispatches programme. We explicitly prohibit child labour in our operations and have been working relentlessly to take a stand against this, making significant efforts through our Cocoa Life programme to improve the protection of children in the communities where we source cocoa, including in Ghana.” On its website, Mondelez International claims “No amount of child labour in the cocoa supply chain should be acceptable.” The conglomerate brought in more than 3.3 billion pounds globally last year, which translates to more than $4.2 billion.