Campaign against trafficking in the chocolate industry.

 

by Stop The Traffic

As we are celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight, the EcoChic team are supporting a number of campaigns to raise awareness of the difference Fairtrade makes.

Stop the Traffic have invited us all to take part in their campaign to bring an end to the trafficking of children in the chocolate industry.

TRAFFICKING IS growing. 2-4 MILLION men, women and children are trafficked across borders and within their own country every year. More than one person is trafficked across borders EVERY MINUTE, which is equivalent to five jumbo jets every day. The trafficking trade that earns twice as much worldwide revenue as Coca Cola.

Why Fairtrade Chocolate?

Eat chocolate, eat lots of chocolate, but buy, eat and give fairtrade.

■ At the moment fairtrade is the best trafficked free guarantee we’ve got and it shows the Chocolate Industry that we want chocolate but we only want traffik free chocolate!
■ Because your choice - for traffik free chocolate matters!
■ Check out our Good Chocolate Guides to find out where to buy fair-trade chocolate.
■ Party, protest and fundraise. Host a chocolate fondue party and tell others about the chocolate campaign.
■ Drown your town in coupons! Download and carry our coupons around in your wallet/purse and every time you buy chocolate-give one to the shop. Let all the shops selling chocolate in your neighborhood know why you are buying fair trade chocolate.
■Read Chaga and The Chocolate Factory to children.

Nestlé Kit Kat’s go Fairtrade

Late in 2009 we received the great news that Nestlé  is to convert Kit Kat to Fairtrade and this is due to the vigorous campaign by STOP THE TRAFFIK.

On Monday morning (December 7th) chocolate giant Nestlé UK will finally announce that Kit Kat is to be slavery free or fairly traded from January 2010.

A partial success story

But this good news is only partial. Though Nestlé have bowed to pressure from the STOP THE TRAFFIK campaign to clean up their act, they will also announce that this will only apply to their ‘four finger’ product. In other words, two finger Kit Kats and all of their other chocolate products will continue to exploit the chocolate slaves of the Ivory Coast from where Nestlé source most of their cocoa.

Over the last few years STOP THE TRAFFIK campaigners have put pressure on the big chocolate manufacturers around the world to eradicate the worst forms of child labour on the cocoa farms of Ivory Coast, West Africa where thousands of young children are trafficked, enslaved and abused to harvest the cocoa that makes over a third of the world’s chocolate.

Tens of thousands of our campaigners have written letters, sent emails and text messages, twittered, facebooked, made phone calls, worn t-shirts and, most importantly, refused to eat anything other than traffik-free brands of chocolate.

Cadbury & Dairy Milk Goes Fairtrade

In response, earlier this year, Cadbury launched fair trade Dairy Milk in the UK and Ireland. However, when STOP THE TRAFFIK’s global campaigners continued to demand this policy be applied globally, it didn’t take long for the Dairy Milk fair-trade certification to spread to other parts of the world.

Weeks later Mars capitulated to STOP THE TRAFFIK’s “March on Mars” campaign, promising that their Galaxy range will be Rainforest Alliance certified in 2010 with their whole product range traffik free by 2020. We know, from a number of inside sources in the industry that these changes are directly due to the pressure that STOP THE TRAFFIK has exerted at community level.

Since summer 2009 STOP THE TRAFFIK has turned the heat up on Nestlé - a global giant with a poor human rights record - and in recent weeks has launched a new and hard-hitting Christmas campaign designed to bring the giant company to task.

STOP THE TRAFFIK has learnt that from January 2010 the four finger Kit Kats will be fairtrade and that this will be made public on Monday. However, Nestlé still refuse to budge on their two finger biscuits.

Steve Chalke - Founder of STOP THE TRAFFIK and the United Nations Special Advisor on Community Action Against Human Trafficking responded by saying:

“We welcome the Nestlé announcement. We are relieved for the cocoa farmers and children in Ivory Coast. The surrender of Nestlé demonstrates that by making a simple consumer choice ordinary people can hold multi-nationals to account. Though we understand that it is hard to make all products ethical overnight, we want to see that this is more than a token gesture. So, we intend to keep the pressure on Nestlé until their commitment is global and product wide, like their competitor Mars. No chocolate should have the bitter aftertaste of slavery. Therefore our campaign continues”

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