Little Victims Of Abuse By:Alexandra Figari

Dear reader,

 Working hard to make the chocolate we love today. Little children just like us are victims of abuse. These children cry, bleed and beg to see their families again. People need to start speaking about this problem. Ivory Coast hot, humid, and extremely tiring. Child slaves must work super hard to collect cocoa beans. In their everyday lives they get hurt, bleed, and cry constantly. Because they’re sad. They never get to go to school. Some of these children don’t even know what cocoa is or how t taste. These children don’t get paid, not even a penny. The traffickers surround kids and take them without parent permission. 75% of the world’s cocoa is produced by Ivory Coast and West Africa countries. This is the cocoa used by chocolate companies like Hersheys.

       Children get exposed to pesticides and fertilizers. The children that get exposed to these chemicals get very sick. The water and air are very dirty. Children have no choice but to drink the water and breathe the dirty air. The soil can get damaged and makes it difficult for plants to grow. Because of this the children must work even harder to make the plants grow. All of these things can be found in documentaries like the Dark Side of Chocolate which describes this problem. In the poem Cocoa Beans by Ms.Frieda Denis Cooper says "Just like a predator lures it with a deceiving smile.” Some children will get tricked to get on the bus that leads to Ivory Coast where the cocoa farm is.

       One course of action taken was Reverse Trick or Treating. The San Francisco based human rights group global exchange began the campaign two years ago to put increased grassroots pressure on international companies that purchased cocoa. Farmers are paid more with fair trade, so they don’t have to live in poverty and their children can get an education, Garuav Noronha a 15 year old student from Mumbai; India explains. The farmer from whom this company gets the cocoa, are paid fairly. Such movements should be supported.


     The more everybody gets to know about how Hershey gets its cocoa, the more efforts the company will take to make sure there are no children used to make the chocolate we love.