Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation

Re:Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News ... by bell-cot on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:43PM (#38493570)

If (as the article states) the total value of the cocoa that Murina's entire family managed to harvest, in an entire year, was $115 - that sounds like destitute, desperate poverty to me. If actually living in such circumstances, ~all humans put their kids to work, and lie as needed to survive.

And if the "child labor certification" inspectors you send are anything resembling decent human beings, then they will send back endless lies in their reports, saying "no child labor here" - because they prefer lying to seeing yet more farm family members die of starvation, because the families could not afford luxuries like food.

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Re:Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News ... by rurp on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:49PM (#38493646)

Yeah, exactly. Under these types of conditions most kids will be starving and living in dangerous conditions. Not working doesn't mean they get to go to school or to a playground, it means their family is even more starving.

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Re:Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News ... by tcbawo on Friday December 01, 2023 @06:13PM (#38493883)

I would agree with this sentiment if they this was voluntary labor. Others have pointed out that trafficking, beatings, and forced labor are also components.

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Re:Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News ... by bell-cot on Friday December 01, 2023 @11:15PM (#38495817)

Reaction: If I read that $Company's supply chain features trafficked / beaten / forced labor, then I'll be reaching for the big red "REJECT" stamp before I even get to the part about the ages of the victims.

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Re:Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News ... by KPGv2 on Friday December 01, 2023 @07:40PM (#38494582)

So if child labor was banned, it is your contention that chocolatiers would just shutter their doors because they can't find labor anymore?

You can't conceive of the possibility that they'd hire adults at a higher wage? Or raise prices for consumers in the developed world?

You're basically saying it's OK for American companies to hire undocumented workers because the alternative is everyone starves.

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Re:Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News ... by bell-cot on Friday December 01, 2023 @11:00PM (#38495755)

> ...they'd hire adults at a higher wage..."

> "...American companies to hire undocumented..."

Please re-read at least the first paragraph of the article. There is no "hire". There is no "wage". The child labor is on subsistence farms. In Ghana.

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