1.2 Child slavery on the news
The tragic stories of the children involved became known across the USA in 2001 when Knight Ridder newspaper published a series on these slaves. The series profiled young boys who were tricked into slavery, or sold as slaves, to Côte d’ Ivoire cocoa farmers.
Many major and minor news agencies have published reports about child slavery on cocoa farms, but still it goes on. It seems that many people unfortunately think that all the problems are resolved.
1.3 How it happens
Most of the enslaved child workers come from neighboring Mali, which, according to the UN, is the 10 th most undeveloped country in the world. Some slaves are from other West African countries, but Mali is the largest slave supplier. Itʹs easy to lure children from povertystricken families where parents sometimes sell their children to ʺrecruitersʺ, assuming their kids will get a chance at a better life. Throughout Africa it is not strange to see children working, as sometimes poor families need their children to work. Some children are apprenticed. So if people see children working, they are not surprised, as this is normal.
Sometimes traffickers promise the boys money, bicycles, clothes, food, and a chance to give their parents a better life. Traffickers play on these hopes and dreams, going around certain areas recruiting and sometimes even convincing parents to pay the passage fee from the village to the farms. Sometimes the boys’ families knowingly sell them.
Unfortunately, the promises of being able to support their families or afford small luxuries are too good to be true. Once the children, usually boys, have been delivered to the cocoa plantations, itʹs too late. The dreams of new opportunities and of helping their poor families soon disappear along with their hope. The boys, sometimes as young as 8 but usually between 9 and 16, are thrown in small huts and forced to work 80 to 100 hours a week against their will. There is no laughter or play. Their legs soon bear scars from machete injuries, as one of the things they do is hack cocoa pods open using a machete. There are no
6