The Dark Side of Chocolate, a 2010 documentary about the exploitation and slave trade of children in Africa to harvest chocolate, is still happening nearly a decade after the cocoa industry pledged to end it. According to CorpWatch, cocoa plantations in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire provide chocolate for 80 percent of the world’s population. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association and its members signed a document after 2008 banning child trafficking and child labor in the cocoa industry, forcing chocolate producers around the world to “verify that their chocolate is not a product of child labor or slavery. Nevertheless. Efforts are still forcing dozens of children to work on cocoa plantations in Africa. In 2009, Mars and Cadbury joined the Rainforest Alliance to end child labor by 2020, and these major chocolatiers want child labor abolished on all the plantations where they source their cocoa.
Production
The Dark Side of Chocolate is produced by Danish journalist Miki Mistrati who investigates child labor and child trafficking in chocolate production. It is directed by U. Roberto Romano. Filming began in Germany, and Mistrati asked suppliers where their chocolate came from. They then flew to Mali, where many of the children came from. Next, they explored Ivory Coast, where the cocoa plantations are located. The film ends in Switzerland, where the International Labor Organization (ILO) and Nestlé are headquartered. Most of the footage in the documentary was shot with a secret camera that Mistrati carried in his bag. The documentary was released in 2010, first in Denmark, then in Sweden, Ireland, Belgium and Norway
summarize
In 2001, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association created an action plan known as the Harkin-Engel Agreement to end the worst forms of child trafficking and slave labor. [9] However, child trafficking continues in West African countries. Authorities and the company deny that this happened. Because of this conflicting perspective, the filmmakers go undercover to uncover the truth. The film begins with the independent investigation of two filmmakers who travel to the west coast of Africa to the country of Mali, from which children are being smuggled and then shipped to Ivory Coast. [10] The aim of the team of journalists was to investigate human trafficking and child labor in Côte d’Ivoire and their impact on the global chocolate industry. The documentary begins in Cologne, Germany, where Mistrati asks each seller at a meeting of chocolatiers where their chocolate is imported from. Their responses indicated that almost all chocolate was imported from somewhere in Africa. Her detective work led her to spot Malians trafficking children at bus stops, bribing them with jobs and money, or abducting them from villages. They were then taken to border towns such as Zegoua, where another trafficker took the children across the border in an off-road vehicle. Then they have a third trafficker who sells the child to the plantation. These 10- to 15-year-olds are forced into forced labour, subjected to physical abuse, and paid little or no wages. Most of them remained on the plantation until they died, never to see their families again. Child labor and child trafficking are illegal under the Harkin-Engel agreement, signed by all major chocolate companies, which pledges not to use child labor to harvest cocoa beans. Confronted with this issue, some of these companies’ corporate officials denied all rumors of child labor and child trafficking, but the filmmakers’ investigations revealed continued child abuse on cocoa plantations.
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