Cocoa is not always sweet

A bitter taste comes from the USA
The leading American chocolate producer Hershey is being supplied by cocoa suppliers from the Ivory Coast and Ghana. On the cocoa plantations, however, the sweet gold is harvested with the aid of child labour. The US Department of Employment already published a relevant study in 2011 and the accusations against the corporation are becoming increasingly serious.

According to the documentation, close to 2 million children, many of them younger than 10 years, are illegally employed at West African cocoa plantations. A further report shows that workers at the cocoa plantations in Ghana are subject to illegal working conditions and that some boys and girls are victims of forced labour. Hershey therefore indirectly supports these illegal working conditions.

The corporation is declining the accusations, but it admits to knowing about the existence of widely spread child exploitation in these countries, which are against both international and national laws.