Informative Essay On Cocoa

A plump kid in America bites into a chocolate. A scarred, fatigued child in the Ivory Coast hacks his way through the bean pods on the cocoa tree using a machete. The boy in America grumbles his way through school and wonders when he can go home to play video games. The boy in Africa throws a sack of bean pods over his shoulder that is much too heavy for him. At the end of the day the privileged kid will climb into his bed with no worries. The child slave will climb into bed, exhausted, with no money and no windows to even look out of. There is no difference between these boys except the lives they were born into, either could have been born into the miserable life of slavery. One was though, and everyday he struggles through a long work day and harsh working …show more content…
From countries like Mali and Burkina Faso, thousands of children are trafficked to the Ivory Coast. A large amount of children are taken out of school with or without consent and forced to work. Ironically, many of these workers and farmers have never even tasted chocolate. “Drissa, a recently freed slave who had never even tasted chocolate, experienced similar circumstances. When asked what he would tell people who eat chocolate made from slave labor, he replied that they enjoyed something that he suffered to make, adding, ’When people eat chocolate, they are eating my flesh’” (foodispower.org, child labor and slavery in the chocolate industry). Clearly the workers are very impacted by their experience and it is no surprise considering all of the intense, involuntary labor they must partake in. Their 12 hour work days are filled with exposure to toxic pesticides, sharp machetes, and excessively heavy loads to carry. In addition to the inhumane working conditions a lot of the children are sexually, emotionally, and physically abused. Not only this but the pay is minimal to none, making some of these workers modern day