Dear chocolate cravers,
“Swoosh” goes the machete while it vigorously cuts down the
cocoa pods off the cocoa trees. Their masters yelling, “No lollygagging!” Then
all of a sudden you hear “whip” as the men beat the children with whips.
Harmful chemicals splatter on their wounds while they crack open cocoa pods.
While we devour the chocolate we can’t live without, children in West Africa
are starving left, right, and center. Most popular chocolate brands use child
labor to get their chocolate. We think that companies should be fair, make
adults work, make adults, and pat them fairly.
According to the text “Child Slavery and
Chocolate” “Yacou can’t clear grass in the cocoa fields without cutting
himself.” This sentence represents how child labor impacts the health of the
children. When the children cut the grass to clear the way they sometimes cut
their legs. Since some of them are 5-8 years of age, it’s difficult for the
children to hold and use the machetes. When they go to open the cocoa pods the
chemicals splatter on their face and cuts. When the chemicals gets on their
cuts it burns and it gets really infected. They also get whipped by the adults
if they slack off.
Cocoa comes from different parts of the
world but we are going to be focusing on the Ivory Coast in Africa. Children
are shipped there from other countries. On farms, the children take machetes
and cut down cocoa pods from cocoa trees. After that they cut the pods open to
expose the sticky cocoa beans. According to the video, “The Dark Side of
Chocolate” the children take the cocoa beans and dry them up on banana leaves.
When people ship children illegally it’s called trafficking. Like what I said
earlier this paragraph, they ship kids country to country usually with land
vehicles like cars, buses, and motorcycles. Even though trafficking is illegal
we still sell products that use trafficking. According to the text “Child
Slavery and Chocolate” UNICEF estimates
nearly half-million children work on farms across Ivory Coast.
There are some things we can do to stop or
prevent child labor. For example, in the article “Reverse Trick-or-Treat”
children give out fair trade chocolate to raise awareness of child labor.
Instead of Chocolate being given to children, the children give chocolate out.
This shows how fair trade chocolate is better than child labor chocolate. Fair
trade is when there is no child labor to make the chocolate and that the
farmers are getting paid fairly. In “Reverse Trick-or-Treaters” Gaurav Noronha
said, “The farmers from whom this company gets the cocoa, they are paid fairly.
Usually farmers are not paid well enough.” This quote explains how fair trade
cocoa farmers are paid more than other farmers. This is only one way how you
can raise awareness.
In conclusion, children get cuts on their
legs that get extremely infected by the chemicals. They also get whipped from
the adults. One way to raise awareness is to reverse trick-or-treat. You can
also advertise like make a stand around the corner and sell fair trade
chocolate and say what children go through to make us chocolate.
Yours Sincerely,
Brandon Soto
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