Blog #1 Faults of the modern-day slavery in Cacao production
The thesis of this blog is the following: “Modern-day cacao production relies on child slave labor in various countries within the continent of Africa, and the ones with the most blood on their hands are the government officials enabling it.” Here are a few questions that readers should ask to assist with understanding the current slave trade of cacao: “How is this allowed to take place? Who is responsible for the contribution of the cacao slave trade?” To answer the first question, it’s important to remember that child labor especially forced child labor is illegal under international law, according to an article published by a man named Irit Tamir for OXFAM, he mentions how close to about 70% of the world’s cacao supply is of forced child labor, his source comes from the cocoa farmers in West Africa. This is of course an outrage to anyone hearing about that, especially when they take into account of chocolate being consumed worldwide by so many people, which leads to the following question: why don’t countries such as Mali which produces so much cacao do something about this? As the documentary shown in the class lecture called “The Dark side of Cacao” shows a few people going to government officials in Mali and asking this question the government officials began to brush off the idea of child labor exists. His excuse was that due to timing and the annual schedule of cacao being produced, that forced child labor does not exist, all the while he continues to mention how child labor is illegal in the country. While it is true that the De-Juro situation of the law in Mali banning child labor, the De-facto situation is completely different. Many times, law enforcement, and government officials do not enforce this law, instead allowing the forced labor to continue. The article that I previously mentioned continues to include how six Malians brought a lawsuit against two different corporations in the year of 2005 with the fair complaint that they had been subject to forced labor as children. In this lawsuit, they described how harsh their working conditions were where they were deprived of good pay, and lacked an appropriate number of basic necessities such as food, water, work condition-related safety, and lacked appropriate working hours. Now that a basic background of the current situation has been explained to the reader, the next question arises of who is at fault for this modern-day child labor exists. Many different people, will say that it is the fault of the consumers, some will say it’s the fault of the chocolate corporations for purchasing the cacao, all the while knowing full well of the child labor it involves, and finally, there are people who say that the government officials both the ones in the African countries such as Mali and the ones in the Western world are at fault. The people who say that it is the fault of the consumers say that if consumers stop purchasing the chocolate, will force the companies to do something about it, the proponents of the argument that it’s the fault of the chocolate companies will argue that it’s because of the companies not having empathy and only care for profits when purchasing the chocolate, and the proponents of the people who say that it’s the fault of the government officials will use the argument that the government does not want to do anything about it, therefore ensuring anarchy to exist. One thing that all people can surely agree with is that some of the faults lay with the African farmers themselves since they are the ones committing this evil crime against humanity, but the truth of the matter is that while all of the people contribute to some degree of the child labor, the ones who are especially responsible are the government officials here is why. One of the main purposes of government to exist is to protect the rights of people, companies are people as defined by U.S. law, they are not the ones in charge of the laws, their motive is to make revenue by trading. While this may be harsh to say but it is objectively true, that just because something is morally wrong, does not mean that people will not commit that crime, even if they know it is morally wrong. That is where government comes into play, to correct the behaviors of people, including corporations, the ones who govern the chocolate companies in the Western world can pass laws telling them that they cannot purchase chocolate from child labor farmers, and create a police force which inspects the cacao beans. In conclusion, the main fault lies in the hands of the politicians.
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