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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

#31

Post by JumpCrisscross »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

> Munira, 15, is one of those children. She has worked in the cocoa fields since she was 5 years old. Education is a luxury, with her school an hour-long walk away and transportation options expensive. Last year, her family harvested only one bag of decent-quality cocoa. A 140-pound bag of the product fetches only about $115. I think child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem and cracking down on child lab…

> child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem

It is. But we should see it as a symptom of a problem to be cured.

Simply banning procurement would be a mistake, as you observe. But an NGO could be put in place that e.g. pays parents picking cocoa a stipend if they can verify their kids went to school.

Put another way, we can use the global consensus that child labour is bad as activation energy to spur and focus the wider reforms that are needed.

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

#32

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

I mean this is nothing new? If you bought an iPhone you were part of exploiting child labor. Will you stop buying an iPhone? Of course not. We should ideally stop showing such fake interest in these things and focus on other things.

https://www.thefp.com/p/your-iphone-was-built-with-child

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

#33

Post by [deleted] »

autoexec wrote: post #29
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

> Munira, 15, is one of those children. She has worked in the cocoa fields since she was 5 years old. Education is a luxury, with her school an hour-long walk away and transportation options expensive. Last year, her family harvested only one bag of decent-quality cocoa. A 140-pound bag of the product fetches only about $115. I think child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem and cracking down on child lab…

This is exactly the same argument that was often used to justify slavery in the US and after all these years it's still not compelling. Ending slavery in the US didn't "lead to worse problems", it was a massive improvement. People who are free may thrive or struggle, but they'll do it without a master which is always an improvement. There are no solutions to those deeper problems that impact people in poverty which w…

[deleted]

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

#34

Post by autoexec »

the-alchemist wrote: post #11
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

> Munira, 15, is one of those children. She has worked in the cocoa fields since she was 5 years old. Education is a luxury, with her school an hour-long walk away and transportation options expensive. Last year, her family harvested only one bag of decent-quality cocoa. A 140-pound bag of the product fetches only about $115. I think child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem and cracking down on child lab…

This. We would all benefit from more cause and effect analysis in our media. - Let's say we increase prices that we pay cocoa farmers, even double the price - Is this extra enough to send the girl to school an hour away, pay for her books, etc.? If you pay the family more, how do you know they would spend it on the girl's education? Maybe fixing the water well or building a sturdier house is more important. Or paying…

> Historically, almost every country that has "developed" into an "industrialized" nation has had a very difficult, dangerous, violent learning curve.

Historically, countries that industrialized didn't have an extensive history of examples to learn from and they had to figure it out for themselves. Every currently developing country doesn't get their own turn at being horrible to people or the environment.

The developed world should expect developing nations to learn from history and avoid the errors made in the past just as we'd expect them to take advantage of the advances in science and technology that have been reached.

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

#35

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #32

I mean this is nothing new? If you bought an iPhone you were part of exploiting child labor. Will you stop buying an iPhone? Of course not. We should ideally stop showing such fake interest in these things and focus on other things. https://www.thefp.com/p/your-iphone-was-built-with-child

> should ideally stop showing such fake interest in these things

Perfect is the enemy of good [1]. We don't have to completely solve a problem to make discussing it worthwhile.

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

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

#36

Post by teachrdan »

zozbot234 wrote: post #20

So it turns out that the enslaved Oompa-Loompas in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory were just truth in advertising. There's quite a bit of irony to that particular controversy.

For those who don't get OP's reference, in the original version of the book, Oompa-Loompas were literal slaves form Africa. The publisher made Roald Dahl change them to mythical creatures.

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

#38

Post by all2 »

bmacho wrote: post #23
the-alchemist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. We would all benefit from more cause and effect analysis in our media. - Let's say we increase prices that we pay cocoa farmers, even double the price - Is this extra enough to send the girl to school an hour away, pay for her books, etc.? If you pay the family more, how do you know they would spend it on the girl's education? Maybe fixing the water well or building a sturdier house is more important. Or paying…

This not. > - Also, if cocoa farming becomes more profitable, it might encourage _more_ child labor as parents pull their kids from school to work "on the family farm". Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can help you at work?

> Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can help you at work?

If I were in a position of "family eats or family doesn't eat" I would be sorely tempted to tap my kids as extra income earners. This isn't a particularly new problem in the world. The West has only gotten stringent on child labor in the last century, and you're seeing other countries coming up that are also struggling with the issue at hand: enough money to feed the family.

We're rather privileged in the West in that we don't really struggle for necessities. Even our impoverished have clothing, shelter, and food. We don't really understand what it means to be truly impoverished. Nor do we understand the kinds of decisions a father or mother must make in order to ensure their survival and the survival of their children.

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

#39

Post by bell-cot »

janice1999 wrote: post #14
bell-cot wrote: post #3

> Munira, 15, is one of those children. [...] Last year, her family harvested only one bag of decent-quality cocoa. A 140-pound bag of the product fetches only about $115. Sounds like "child labor" is downstream of the actual problem.

Call me a bleeding heart but child labor is an 'actual' problem. You can keep destructing societal issues until you reinvent the universe from scratch. It may be difficult to solve global poverty but it's not a lot to ask extremely profitable companies to enforce the supply chain checks they've committed to.

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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