The Jacobs Foundation says quality education can help improve the situation of children in cocoa communities in West Africa – but is seeking support from cocoa and chocolate industry.
137 children ranging in ages from six to 17 came from the nearby West African countries of Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Togo, local news media said, as US Senate investigation into Côte d'Ivoire's cocoa supply chain continues.
The October meeting in Berlin, Germany, will feature conversations focused on the importance of key partnerships, strong policy initiatives and joint investment in the future.
Following an investigation published in The Washington Post in June, two Democratic lawmakers requested that existing laws prohibiting such imports be enforced.
Researchers set out to determine how much, if at all, a price premium would affect the reality of child labor in cocoa production in Ghana. Through three scenarios, they settled on an 11% bump transferred directly from government to farmer.
US appeals court for the ninth circuit has allowed a child slavery-related lawsuit against Nestlé and Cargill to proceed, and the human rights advocate group that filed the suit warned more chocolate companies, including Mars, will be its next targets.
Mondelēz, Cargill, Nestlé and Tony’s Chocolonely will discuss progress and challenges in implementing Child Labor Monitoring & Remediation Systems (CLMRS) in cocoa communities at a panel during the World Cocoa Conference.
Nestlé USA faces a fresh class action lawsuit in the US for allegedly failing to disclose its chocolate brands may use cocoa from unlawful child or slave labor.
Nestlé’s child labor prevention system in its Cocoa Plan will cover around half of the company’s supply by 2020, but full scale up may never be possible, says its public affairs director.
Nestlé Cocoa Plan has come out top in a report by Stop the Traffik and Baptist World Aid Australia assessing the progress made by chocolate companies and certification organizations in tackling child labor in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
Reporting effective approaches to tackle deep-rooted poverty and child labor in the cocoa sector should take precedence over shock headlines, writes ConfectioneryNews’ editor.
Chocolate companies are coming under increasing scrutiny to publish third-party verified impacts on cocoa sustainability efforts, including taxes paid in origin countries.
A district court in California has thrown out lawsuits accusing Hershey and Nestlé of misleading consumers by failing to disclose cocoa in some chocolate brands may come from slave labor.
