On Halloween, an estimated 36 million costume-clad trick-or-treaters will be out in search of some good scares and bags full of candy. Lucky for them, more than half of American households will hand out chocolate candy, much to the added delight of the chocolate industry, which stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars this Halloween. But what celebrating consumers might not know is that we indulge our collective sweet tooth at the expense of forced, trafficked and child labor in West Africa.

The vast majority of chocolate candy is produced from cacao grown under dubious labor conditions. In fact, the use of slavery was critical to large-scale cacao production for centuries, as it was for other labor-intensive crops such as cotton and tobacco.

Though slavery has been legally abolished worldwide, serious labor abuses on cacao plantations remain. These problems persist throughout West Africa's Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria, which collectively produce nearly 70 percent of the world's cacao. The U.S. State Department estimates that, in Côte d'Ivoire alone (producer of more than 40 percent of the world's cacao), more than 100,000 children work under the "worst forms of child labor," and that at least 10,000 children are victims of human trafficking and enslavement.

The chocolate industry is well aware of these problems. In 2001, under pressure from watchdog groups and the U.S. government, major chocolate producers signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol (pdf). The protocol brought together industry, West African governments, labor organizations and nongovernmental organizations in an international agreement aimed at ending the worst forms of child labor in cacao cultivation.

http://www.theroot.com/views/chocolate-s-bittersweet-legacy?page=0,0

                                                                                  My thoughts

The chocolate industry is a 13 billion dollar a year  and is completely dominated by two firms--M&M and Hershey--who control two thirds of the market. Just think...those Hershey Kisses, Hershey Chocolate bars, Reese's cups,  and Hershey's Nuggets, may(and I think is certainly is)  be made with cocoa produced by child slaves. Oh wait...let's not forget these guys: ADM Cocoa, Ben & Jerry’s, Cadbury Ltd., Chocolates by Bernard Callebaut, Fowler’s Chocolate, Godiva, Guittard Chocolate Company, Kraft, Nestle, See’s Candies, The Chocolate Vault, and Toblerone--all are involved in egregious child labor. I think my sweet tooth is gone! One love brothers and sisters.

         Peace