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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Mar 2010 : 22:03:56
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Panorama is about the chocolate trade. Focusing on the trade in trafficking children in West Africa. It's on BBC 1 now. I'll report back later. Try to watch it if you can.
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 24 Mar 2010 : 22:08:59
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This programme is focusing on Ghana and Ivory Coast.
Can Gambia produce cocoa? It seems to be in the same climate band.
Burkino Faso is accused of sending children as slaves smuggled to work in the cocoa fields. |
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Momodou
Denmark
11829 Posts |
Posted - 24 Mar 2010 : 22:15:02
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A similar if not the same documentary has been shown here in Denmark last week. No, there is no cocoa production in The Gambia.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 24 Mar 2010 : 22:31:46
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I didn't think there was, but wondered if it was possible in the climate?
But perhaps its best not to be involved in such a ruthless, dirty business!
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kayjatta
2978 Posts |
Posted - 25 Mar 2010 : 10:08:58
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I think rainfall (besides culture) might be the limiting factor for cocoa production in the Gambia. With its erratic and unevenly distributed rainfall pattern, and sometimes long spells of drought; cocoa is not likely to thrive well in the Gambia.
Cocoa requires sufficient rainfall evenly distributed throughout the year, moderate temperatures and lots of shade.
Gambia is perhaps a little too hot and too dry...
Maybe I am wrong. |
Edited by - kayjatta on 25 Mar 2010 10:10:19 |
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Momodou
Denmark
11829 Posts |
Posted - 25 Mar 2010 : 10:26:59
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quote:
Originally posted by gambiabev
..perhaps its best not to be involved in such a ruthless, dirty business!
These articles are from the Danish media after the documentary last week.
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Child slavery on cocoa plantations
17. mar. 2010 09.53 English
Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs Brian Mikkelsen largely agrees with the Danish Consumer Council that chocolate manufacturers must keep an eye on conditions at their subcontractors on the African continent.
Yesterday, DR News revealed that child labour and slavery still flourishes on the African plantations delivering cocoa butter to Danish chocolate manufacturers.
However, Brian Mikkelsen doesn't think that the blame should be placed exclusively with the Danish chocolate manufacturers.
- Danish companies are doing a lot to ensure decent conditions, he says.
Translated by Martin Lamberth
MPs criticise chocolate companies over child labour
Published 18.03.10 14:29
Companies say finding cocoa not produced with use of child labour is nearly impossible A parliamentary majority is actively calling for a toughening of labelling laws for chocolate used by Danish companies in light of a television programme this week...
A parliamentary majority is actively calling for a toughening of labelling laws for chocolate used by Danish companies in light of a television programme this week that highlighted the problem of child labour on plantations.
The documentary from public broadcaster DR indicated the problem was so widespread that even fair trade organisations could not guarantee that their chocolate was produced according to internationally accepted standards with regard to child labour.
The Social Democrats, Socialist People’s Party, Red Green Alliance and Danish People’s Party are now pushing for the Liberal-Conservative led government to require that Danish companies must indicate on their products’ labels whether chocolate used in the food’s production came from plantations that used child workers.
‘As a consumer in Denmark you should be able to choose from products from well-known companies without having to think about whether they were produced according to Danish and European laws,’ Rene Christensen, chairman of parliament’s food committee, told Ekstra Bladet newspaper.
An estimated 70 percent of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa, where child labour is common, with many kids working under slave-like conditions.
Chocolate maker Toms and chocolate drink company Cocio have acknowledged the difficulties in obtaining cocoa not produced with child labour.
‘Everyone that makes chocolate products has to use cocoa butter, and that can only be obtained through a very few big distributors that buy their product from a few select countries,’ Jesper Møller, CEO of Toms, told TV2 News.
Møller said, however, that Toms strives to purchase chocolate produced in Ghana, where working conditions are considerably better than in other cocoa producing African countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast.
Cocio was already aware of the problem in 1999 and subsequently conducted its own study into how it could get around the problem of child labour. It’s mission now is to ensure that all its chocolate will be truly ‘fair trade’ by 2012.
The company’s management pointed to cooperatives – plantations owned by the farmers themselves – as the most viable solution to the problem.
Business and economy minister Brian Mikkelsen called child labour ‘disgusting’ and told Ekstra Bladet newspaper that he has asked the Commerce and Companies Agency to look into what initiatives can be implemented to best deal with the problem within the Danish food industry.
Source: The Copenhagen Post
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 25 Mar 2010 : 13:41:59
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Thank you for that information.
I think the shocking thing from the programme was that alot of the children are trafficked to be slaves from one country to another. Sometimes this was done by men from their own families, such as uncles, to make money. I was truely shocked by that. The women had no power to say they didnt want this to happen to their children. It was common place.
In Ghana the local children went to school but they imported trafficked child labour. They were kept separate and not allowed to play or go to school. They were just there to work and kept prisoner. The children werent paid. The person that trafficked them was paid a fee. Children treated as commodities.
I didnt sleep well last night for thinking about this. It's not often that I find out something I knew nothing about and I am totally upset by it. |
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inez
279 Posts |
Posted - 29 Mar 2010 : 19:32:14
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| they showed a documentary here in sweden too yesterday..mostly from conditions in Ivory coast, children trafficed from Mali. Government and farm owners denies it but there is evidence...But why do they sell cocoa beans so cheap to europe and us? 1 euro/kg and at the end, the profit is 315 miljon euro! If the producers charge more and employ grown up men to work at farms, they could stillmake profit. How can children be treated so bad, make me so sad, these kids all over the world with no future and no love and caring.These small and tiny girls and boys that should been taken care of, playing and going to school. |
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