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

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

#121

Post by bell-cot »

tcbawo wrote: post #64
bell-cot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

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.

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.

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

#122

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #94
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it has, indeed, been tried

Where? In former communist countries the workers didn't have any power after the seizing of the means of production, as now they were ruled by brutal dictatorships with powerful militaries who'd send you to the gulag for $REASON. Hardly the envisioned "seizing the means of production" and more like "being seized for production".

I've yet to see evidence that outcomes would ever be different

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

#123

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #96

Tony’s Chocolate entire business is about ending slave sourced chocolate [1] and IMO tastes the best I think they are most likely going to go out of business because CR showed they had the highest lead content [2] It’s always something [1] https://tonyschocolonely.com/uk/en/why-we-still-wont-say-wer... [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-...

Well that sucks. My wife is a chocolate fiend and she recently went all-in on Toney's due to their cruelty-free thing. It tastes better than most other stuff you can find at the grocery store, to boot.

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

#124

Post by maxwell »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15
maxwell wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were charged, but the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/supreme-court-rules-in-favor...

> were charged They were sued. That's reasonable. (SCOTUS overturned it. I don't know the relevant law well enough to comment on it.) Criminally charging executives would be tantamount to putting Ghana's cocoa sector under U.S. sanctions.

Yep thanks for clarifying/correcting.

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

#125

Post by harrisi »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #96

Tony’s Chocolate entire business is about ending slave sourced chocolate [1] and IMO tastes the best I think they are most likely going to go out of business because CR showed they had the highest lead content [2] It’s always something [1] https://tonyschocolonely.com/uk/en/why-we-still-wont-say-wer... [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-...

The way the different chocolates are laid out, it does look like Tony's is the highest (it's ordered first), but it's actually the lowest of the "high in lead" category.

Still high, but not the highest, which goes to Hershey's Special Dark Mildly Sweet chocolate and has just under twice as much lead as Tony's, according to the report.

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

#126

Post by FirmwareBurner »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #122
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where? In former communist countries the workers didn't have any power after the seizing of the means of production, as now they were ruled by brutal dictatorships with powerful militaries who'd send you to the gulag for $REASON. Hardly the envisioned "seizing the means of production" and more like "being seized for production".

I've yet to see evidence that outcomes would ever be different

Where would you see that evidence if it was nevere done? Because it can't really be done.

Because the workers themselves don't have power to seize anything. The military is the one with the power to seize stuff come a revolution because they're the ones with a lot of big guns, not the workers. But now the workers themselves become part of the things being seized, to serve the military leadership, not the workers.

Workers get screwed either way.

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

#127

Post by vkou »

chrisco255 wrote: post #101
vkou wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the families starving? Is the only option in that area growing cocoa for export to the West? Why can't those people work for themselves, to grow their own food, to feed themselves? Is it because some wealthy landlord owns all the land? Is it because we dump subsidized food on the global markets, making local agriculture non-competitive? Could either of those have anything to do with it? There seems to be a ve…

Without knowing too much about Ghana specifically, I have been to third world countries and seen some of the conditions that prevent an economy from flourishing. It is usually a lack of property rights altogether (autocratic governments that take from individuals at will, which you can only avoid by being too small to cut down), deep corruption in the government that basically runs on bribes (whereby the highest bidd…

There clearly are property rights, since the landowners seem to be reaping the lion's share of the bounty, year after year.

Perhaps they are not property rights that serve the people doing the work, but that's a separate problem.

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

#128

Post by yawboakye »

MyShawdowySelf wrote: post #54
yawboakye wrote: post #44

ghanaian here: it’s not the business of mars (m&m makers) to ensure that no children are exploited during the production of the cocoa beans. and americans shouldn’t eat their chocolate with some trepidation that they might be eating the body and blood of a 5-yo. we, not they, commit these boys and girls to these activities, of our own volition. it’s a fucked up society that looks to hold an external party responsible…

West African here too. This is too simplistic, and a problem can have multiple guilty parties. There is enough blame to go around. > we, not they, commit these boys and girls to these activities, of our own volition. We can judge people's choices without taking in consideration the context and the options that they have. The alternative to not sending those young people to work is them starving, or not going to schoo…

so maybe a little more context will help here. i've been in the situation described as child labor here—been involved in hard labor since i was about 6-yo, mainly working on the farm, carrying heavy load of produce and firewood on my head for long walk home. all these along with other kids—so i'm mainly speaking from experience.

it's a complex problem, of course, but nothing to do with all the entities you have invoked. bear in mind that these abused kids don't live in cities, nor do they belong to middle class families: they're village dwellers, not poor by the standards of the village but by the standards of world bank. their families and communities need their labor because that's all they have known. people in these communities barely speak english. their whole lives all they've known is tilling the land and dutifully committing the next generations to the same task. if you don't want munira working the farm, you don't accost mars. rather you systematically educate and civilize her community so that they become self-aware of the benefits of education and the perils of denying their children this opportunity.

without any systematic effort to transform the elders of the community, you can't stop child labor. mars may decide to stop buying from munira's community. but that will never take munira and other kids her age away from the farm: it's their fate, according to the beliefs of their elders.

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

#129

Post by randomdata »

bouncycastle wrote: post #87
31337Logic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Younger me would have laughed (or even wanted to insult you) over this comment. Older me just gave you an upvote for it. I think you're on to something.

Thanks! Looks like I got downvoted to hell anyways, now at -2. But that's OK, I've got points to burn on challenging views ;-)

Gotta spend fake internet points to make fake internet points.

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

#130

Post by randomdata »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #81
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we can keep discussing it and feeling good about ourselves.

> we can keep discussing it and feeling good about ourselves Contemplating the exploitation of children makes you feel good about yourself? To the extent anyone is virtue signalling, it's the comment arguing we should throw this under the rug because everyone isn't sufficiently morally invested.

There isn't nearly enough information in the article to know if there is exploitation taking place or not. A child doing some chores is not considered exploitation by any reasonable measure.

According to the internet, a typical person can harvest 150-175 pounds of cocoa per day[1]. The family in question harvested 140 pounds that year. It is not like this is some kind of full time job. It is barely a hobby. With the whole family pitching in, it struggles to even make for an afternoon outing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_bean

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