There are officially three weeks until the #StandUp4HumanRightsCT rally on September 8!
Day 21 of our countdown will be dedicated to Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the protection from slavery of any kind.
The article reads: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”
Though this article may appear to be one of the most straightforward and obvious of them all, slavery and forced servitude continue to plague our global society today. Modern slavery and servitude take a multitude of forms, ranging from child labor to forced prostitution, and nearly every nation continues to be tainted by this egregious practice, either directly or indirectly.
One generally unsuspected perpetuator of forced child labor is the international chocolate industry, whose involvement in the human trafficking of West African children for the purposes of cocoa harvesting were highlighted in the 2010 documentary “The Dark Side of Chocolate.” The documentary uncovers the hidden horrors of the $100 billion industry that converts cocoa harvested on farms in countries like the Ivory Coast and Ghana— these two nations alone produce a combined 60% of the total global cocoa supply— into the chocolate bars and candies that are unknowingly consumed by billions worldwide each year. It highlights the stories of West African children and adolescents that are forced to work on cocoa farms for ungodly amounts of time each day without pay, unable to attend school and regularly subjected to violent and tortuous behavior.
In 2010, media and governmental attention to human rights violations within the chocolate industry increased as a result of the documentary and similar muckraking publications around that time. In response, major chocolate manufacturers publicly vowed to make substantive efforts to reduce child labor in West African nations, working towards a 70% reduction by 2020. Despite this, as the demand for chocolate surges internationally, this multi-billion dollar industry continues to resort to the same inhumane methodologies, with more recent reports indicating that though progress is being made, it has been disappointingly slow.
West African children are still being trafficked to feed this global industry, and slavery and forced servitude are continually active forces around the world. What can we do to combat these systems? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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Spread the word about the celebratory rally on September 8th!
You can follow the event countdown on both Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to repost using #StandUp4HumanRightsCT
This will be a great venue for you to hear from local change-makers, network with other community members, and find out what you can personally do to affect change!
Artwork by Meredith Stern.