Dark Side of Chocolate

Dark (Side of) Chocolate: The Bitter and Sweet
Mary VerDuin
Julia Gnamm, Alex Nelson,
Social Consequences:
People in our global community dont think about the social consequences of Chocolate
let alone the problems that are associated with Dark Chocolate specifically. The truth is that our
chocolate supplies, for the most part, are tainted with a darker side of child slavery. A majority of
our chocolate products, around 43%, come from Cote DIvoire (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001)
which Cote DIvoire has become notorious for supplying the world chocolate industries with
slave tainted chocolate. According to the United States Department of State, they estimate that
approximately 109,000 children work under the worst forms of Child Labor and approximately
10,000 of these children are enslaved (House). This number varies from the findings of the
British Broadcasting Company, the BBC, and the International Labor Organization. Both groups
suggest that the number is radically higher standing in at 200,000 children in the workforce with
15,000 of them being held as slaves from within and from around the country of Cote DIvoire
("Chocolate: The impact," 2008). These children who are held captive by the chocolate
plantation owners are typically around the ages of 9 and 16 (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001).
These children live absolutely awful lives under the reign of their captors. Many of the
slaves are whipped, beaten, and broken like horses to harvest the almond sized beans that are
made into chocolate treats for fortunate children in Europe and America (Chatterjee &
Raghavan, 2001). Almost every slave interviewed later after their captive years state that they
still dont know what chocolate is and they dont understand why it is so important. All they can
recollect is that the bean was highly precious (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001).
These same children are forced to fend for themselves for nutritional substance and are
not supplied with basic necessities like water, medical assistance, and educations in sacrifice to
harvest the cocoa beans for the global market (House). The luckier child slaves are offered up
corn paste and bananas. Sometimes, if they are in good favors with the farmer, they may be
offered up yams with gravy which is salt water mixed in with the yams (Chatterjee &
Raghavan, 2001).
Their living conditions as a whole are absolutely unfit for children. They are forced to
live in makeshift huts, approximately twenty by twenty four feet big, with all of the other child
workers. They are offered up wooden planks without mattresses to sleep on and they are locked
in overnight to prevent the chance of an escape. There are holes cut on the sides around the size
of baseballs to allow air in so they wont suffocate (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001).
Adding up all of these factors there is a clear human rights violation in respect to the
children there on the Ivory Coast. According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Children (CRC) of September 1990, the Cote DIvoire is in strict violation of its regulation. The
Convention states that a child is any human below the age of eighteen years of age. It establishes
that a child is to be protected from economic exploitation and from preforming any work that is
likely to be hazardous. It can also not interfere with a childs pursuit to an education. It may also
not be harmful to the childs health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development
("International laws and," 2005).
The severity of their violations only worsens when it also comes to the International

Mary VerDuin
Labor Organizations Minimum Age Convention held in 1973. This convention states that work
should not be performed by any human under the age of fifteen. The exception to this rule is that
children living in developing nations with economic and educational issues are allowed to work
after the age of fourteen. Light work is allowable with the age of 12 in these developing nations
but every nation, developed or not, must adhere to the rule that no hazardous, demoralizing work
shall be done by anyone under the age of eighteen ("International laws and," 2005).
The worst of all is their violations towards the International Labor Organizations Worst
Forms Convention held in 1999. This convention states that there should be immediate and
effective measures to prohibit or eliminate the worst forms of child labor, such as slavery and
slavery like practices. These practices include, and are not limited to child trafficking, debt
bondage, forced labor, forced recruitment of children into armed conflict, using a child for
prostitution or pornography purposes, drug trafficking, and hazardous work. These are
considered the most unconditional worst forms of child labor and this applies to any human
person under the age of eighteen. This was the fastest ratified internationally in the history of the
International Labor Organization ("International laws and," 2005).
Cote DIvoire was involved with all three of these conventions and has shown clear signs
of breaking their regulations stated above. The reasons for this can be seen in how the farms are
set up. Many of these farms are located so they are hidden from the public eye making them
unknown (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001). This allows for the corruption to move on without the
consequences.
Many of these farmers also gather children from surrounding areas on the Ivory Coast.
Children on these farms are not strictly the children of the farmers of poor children residing in
Cote DIvoire. Many recruiters will venture out to surrounding countries and entice poor or
orphaned children to follow them back to Cote DIvoire with the promises of pay, food, and
protection. The main countries where this exploitation occurs is Cote DIvoire itself, Mali,
Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo. When these children finally make it to the cocoa plantations they
are then forced to work brutal hours, usually from 6:30 in the morning until ten at night, and they
are disallowed to go back home to their families and countries (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001).
All in all, these children are used as cogs in the international chocolate market machine.
It is hard to tell which cocoa bean was picked by the hands of a slave or came from a fair trade
field due to the use of middlemen, various transporting devices like ships and trucks, and so on.
Also the sneakiness of the farmers makes it harder for global regulation to reach the lives of
these enslaved children. The intense demand and market makes protesting impossible, or at least
grotesquely complex, due to the risk of worsening conditions for these children. In all, the global
market makes it very hard to track these human rights violations and to which products are
tainted by this labor.
Environmental Impacts:
Just like social consequences, the public never truly ponders the environmental impacts

Mary VerDuin
chocolate has on our global climate and ecosystems. Due to economic pressures from the global
chocolate market the cocoa trees and beans are not grown to thrive in their natural state. There
are sustainable ways of growing the trees and beans, but, they dont fit into the demand for
chocolate on an international scale (Bell, 2012).
The harvesting of the cocoa bean at such a large scale promotes deforestation, pollution,
and soil erosion in the tropical areas where they are found and thrive. The tropical areas are one
of the most bio diverse regions on the planet and can be found in countries such as Ecuador,
Peru, Colombia, and Brazil in South America, Malaysia Indonesia, and the Philippines in the
Pacific Ocean region, and much of Western Africa such as Ghana, Cote DIvoire, and so on. All
of these regions share the common tie of being cocoa bean producers with Western Africa, the
Ivory Coast, being the world leader (Bell, 2012).
In these regions they all face these environmental impacts. Even though the cocoa bean
and its mother tree are considered natural in these forest areas, they have been turned into a
monoculture by the human harvesters. It is more considered a crop than a wild species. The
reason for this is because they inhabit large areas with just this species with the intentions of
harvesting (Bell, 2012).
This transformation from it being a player in the biodiversity of the region to a crop hurts
not only the biodiversity but also the environment in general. Pesticides used on the crop harm
the surrounding area by contaminating animals and seeping into the low aquifers underneath. It
hurts the water supply, such as the Amazon in South America, and plays as a destructive force. It
especially hurts amphibians in these various watersheds. This has a direct link as a factor to the
decrease in the frog population worldwide (Bell, 2012).
Soil Erosion is also another key player in the adverse effects the cocoa tree holds on the
environment. After a chunk of a rain forest is clear cut, which is due in part to make room for this
crop, it exposes the soil causing the nutrients to be lost and allowing massive amounts of soil
erosion to occur. With this and the planting of just cocoa trees, the soil becomes exhausted after
only a couple of decades making it lose its candidacy to possibly be reforested impossible. It also
makes the land unsuitable for continued farming practices as well (Bell, 2012).
Even though the practices of today are quite glum and gloomy, there are ways to make
growing cocoa beans sustainable for the environment. The way we can go about making it
sustainable is by reintroducing the tree back into the rainforest in the manner it was meant to
thrive. The cocoa bean tree is naturally a rainforest understory. This means that the cocoa bean
tree typically thrives under the coverage of taller trees. It is very possible to grow a low numbers
of these trees within the perfect rainforest. It has been proposed as well to be used as a tool of
reforestation programs and so on. It would be considered if it would be able to support the global
market. As of today, even though it would be the most environmentally friendly process, it is
likely to be ignored due to international demand for chocolate (Bell, 2012).
Global Rules, Marketing and Regulations:

Mary VerDuin
Like everything thats traded, imported, and exported in the world, chocolate has
regulations tied along with it. The thing about the regulations is that they are far more relaxed
than other foods you can purchase at the markets. As stated earlier, 43% of cocoa beans are
produced in the country of Cote DIvoire in Western Africa on the Ivory Coast. After the beans
have been harvested, the farmers or plantation owners then deal with middlemen who in turn
deal with the chocolate corporations of the world. The farmers will usually receive 3.5 to 6.4% of
the actual cost of a chocolate bar compared to the 16% they wouldve received in the 1980s. On
the other hand the manufacturers have seen an increase in profit ranging around 56% to 70%
opposed to their previous 12 to 17% in the 1980s (Allen, 2011). This is due in part to the
unregulated prices on chocolate allowing room for corruption in prices in the production process.
Many of these buyers who are considered middlemen never actually visit the farms and,
when they do, they come to inspect the beans and not the violations and work ethics. They are
merely there for profit and to make sure that the cocoa they are buying is worthy of purchase.
Some report that they werent aware of the conditions of slavery and often mistake the children
on the farms, when visited, as the children of the plantations owner which is only partially true
compared to the other slaves held on these farms.
With this blind view on the slavery that takes hold in this region, child trafficking
experts say inadequate legislation, ignorance of the law, poor law enforcement, porous borders,
police corruption, and a shortage of resources help perpetuate the problem of child slave labor in
the Ivory coast (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001). All of these factors combines, especially the
porous borders, ignorance, and corruption, allows for these human violations to occur while trade
still stands strong in this region because the western world is blind to the corruption thats inside.
This ignorance feeds the global market with more cocoa beans. The more we dont know
about it the more the perpetrators get away with. They can continue stealing and forcing children
into this hard labor causing more cocoa beans to be harvested and sold into the global market. It
is roughly estimated that 43,700 tons ship from the Ivory Coast to United States ports of
Philadelphia, Brooklyn, New York City, and other regions along the east coast according to the
Port Import Export Reporting Service (Chatterjee & Raghavan, 2001). It is estimated that this
number would only increase if not for the grievous environmental impacts the crops hold on the
environments.
Not only are the middlemen blissfully unaware. Major corporations themselves are
unaware of the human trafficking violations that come from the beans. In many cases its quite
difficult to trace which bean was picked fair trade and which was tainted with the hands of a held
slave. After this news broke out into the global community many people called for a radical
change. This need for change can be found in the concept of Fair Trade Chocolate.
Fair Trade Chocolate is a trading partnership, transparency, and respect that seek greater
equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading
conditions to the disadvantaged workers in this industry. These workers are primarily found in

Mary VerDuin
the South. To be considered fair trade a company must comply with strict regulations and
rules to keep human violations from being broken. In this system the Fair Trade Cocoa
producers organizations receive a higher price for their cocoa beans. This roughly comes out to
150$ per tonne for non-fair trade chocolate and around 1,750$ for fair trade. Even though the
cost is higher than being a non-fair trade organization, it helps the ethics of a business, follows
human rights regulations, and offers a chance for both the disadvantaged workers and the
environment. ("The chocolate industry," 2013)
Sadly, on .5% of companies adhere to the Fair Trade Chocolate regulations ("The
chocolate industry," 2013). Its suggested the reason for this is from aspects such as greed and
ignorance on behalf of the companies. One of the worst offenders was Hershey Chocolate which
is produced here in the United States of America. They used supplies from child labor from West
Africa until a lawsuit came to fruition in November of 2012. The law firm Grant and
Eisenhofer filled a lawsuit against this chocolate powerhouse accusing them of major humans
rights violations in their trading practices. Hershey, after the lawsuit, stated that they have now
created a company plan to commit to a100% source consumption by third party certified cocoa
by 2020. They also stated that they plan on putting 10 million dollars towards solving child labor
problems in response to the legal issues they faced (Bloxham, 2012).
In all, this lawsuit may cause for more push for regulations on a global scale when it
comes to chocolate dealing with child enslavement. There are no set regulations today that
strictly deal with chocolate and the regulations found are based on health precautions needed to
be met by various regions such as our FDA. More fair trade organizations are formulating as we
speak and hopefully we can push past the ignorance is bliss phase and raise awareness to the
violations which in time will lead to the creation of stricter regulations and rules dealing with
chocolate.
Human and Animal Health:

With every food there are benefits and consequences to their consumption. Dark
Chocolate is in the category where there are more known health benefits than risks to the health.
Health officials suggest that the average person should attempt to consume approximately 7
ounces of Dark Chocolate a week which amounts to one ounce daily (Myklebust & Wunder,
2010).
The reason people are encouraged to partake in this consumption is because of its health
benefits. Dark Chocolate contains things called flavonoids which are a part of group of
antioxidants. Antioxidants are proven to be beneficial to the lifestyle of a human. Dark Chocolate
can be comparable to that of Red Wine, Tea, and various Fruits and Vegetables (Myklebust &
Wunder, 2010).
Dark Chocolate can also decrease LDL cholesterol which is considered bad to have in our
systems. The reason why it may have a beneficial effect on cholesterol levels is because it
consists mainly of stearic acid and oleic acid. Stearic, according to the University of Michigan, is

Mary VerDuin
considered a saturated fat but unlike its counterparts, it doesnt raise cholesterol levels. Oleic
acid is a monounsaturated fat and is also a fat that doesnt raise the levels. It is suggested that it
may even have the opposite effect and may take part in reducing cholesterol doctors say
(Myklebust & Wunder, 2010).
Dark Chocolate may also reduce the risk of blood clots, increases the blood flow in
arteries and in the heart, and it may also potentially lower blood pressure. It is considered a food
for the heart due to all the benefits that may derive from the consumption (Myklebust & Wunder,
2010).
Dark Chocolate also does more than just help your heart and blood. It may also be linked
to better moods and happier attitudes. The reason for this is that it may boost the serotonin and
endorphin levels in the brain which in turn create the feelings of happiness and pleasure
Other benefits also include the boost in cognitive performance in the elderly. It also
contains high levels of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium which are all
crucial to maintaining a healthy body, mind, and lifestyle (Myklebust & Wunder, 2010).
But, like Dark Chocolate itself, there is a bitter to the sweet. There are some health
concerns that should be taken to mind when eating this substance. Those who suffer from anxiety
and chronic migraines should be cautious when approaching Dark Chocolate. Dark Chocolate
contains measurable amounts of caffeine which has been shown may have a link to headaches,
migraines, and anxiety in some people. Doctors suggest those who are sensitive to caffeine to be
cautious when approaching Dark Chocolate (Myklebust & Wunder, 2010).
Dark Chocolate may also be linked to the formation of Kidney Stones. The Chocolate
contains oxalates which can lead to an increase in urinary oxalate excretion. This in turn raises
the risk for the formation of kidney stones which can in turn be very painful to live with. Those
who are prone to this development should be cautious as well when it comes to Dark Chocolate
consumption (Myklebust & Wunder, 2010).
Focusing more on Migraines, it contains a natural chemical that goes by the name of
tyramine which is thought to trigger migraines. Data for this finding is still being created as we
speak and not well supported but nonetheless those who suffer from migraines should be careful.
Not every migraine sufferer is sensitive to tyramine but should still be careful. Doctors suggest
experimenting with Dark Chocolate to see if it may be a trigger or if it is considered a safe food
Doctors suggest to avoid over eating Dark Chocolate, considering it is still very high in
calories, is to eat it with fresh fruit as a melted substance or wait to indulge after completing a
meal such as dinner or lunch. They also suggest that even eating a fruit, like an apple, previous
will cut back on the cravings (Myklebust & Wunder, 2010).
Dark Chocolate doesnt just tempt humans. Many animals, especially pets, find the aroma
appealing which can be dangerous to their health. Never feed pets chocolate since it could
potentially cause them major health problems or even death.
Half an ounce to an ounce can kill smalls dogs like Chihuahuas, two to three ounces can

Mary VerDuin
kill a medium sized dog like a cocker spaniel, corgi, or dachshund, while four to eight ounces
can kill large dogs such as collies, Labradors, and german shepherds. Cats are very seldom
victims to death by chocolate due to their different eating habits but it can still prove fatal for
them if they consume Dark Chocolate or any other kind of Chocolate ("Pet care: Chocolate,"
2013).
If the pet doesnt die, they may be faced with heart and respiratory issues, constant
vomiting, seizures, and even as far as a coma. Some veterinarians suggest that it may be linked to
heart worms in dogs which can fatal to the dog ("Pet care: Chocolate," 2013).
All in all, the health benefits for humans are greater than the consequences and should be
considered a healthy food when taken in moderation. As for pets, you should keep all supplies
away from them and never offer your pet any Chocolate of any kind for it can prove awful for
the health and life of your pet. This also includes rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, and other
small creatures that can be kept as pets. It is a positive aspect for humans not for other creatures
as proven by doctors and veterinarians.

Mary VerDuin
Citations APA style

Allen, T. (2011, September 23). Fairtrade cocoa and sustainable chocolate industry. Retrieved
from http://www.tradingvisions.org/topics/chocolate
Bell, J. (2012, April 9). The impact of chocolate on the environment. Retrieved from
http://begreen.botw.org/2012/04/the-impact-of-chocolate-on-the-environment/
Bloxham, E. (2012, November 16). Chocolate and child labor: A hurdle for hershey. Retrieved
from http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/16/hershey-child-labor-suit/
Chatterjee, S., & Raghavan, S. (2001, June 24). A taste of slavery. Retrieved from
http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/atasteofslavery.html
Chocolate: The impact on people and the ethical choices. (2008, February 6). Retrieved from
http://invisiblevoices.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/chocolate-the-impact-on-people-and-theethical-choices/
House, T. C. (n.d.). Q&a: Chocolate and child slavery campaign. Retrieved from
http://www.antislavery.org/english/campaigns/cocoa_traders/chocolate_and_slavery_qa.aspx
International laws and programs on eliminating child labor. (2005). Retrieved from
http://knowchildlabor.org/child_labor/how_international_law_defines_child_labor.php
Myklebust, M., & Wunder, J. (2010). Healing foods pyramid dark chocolate. Retrieved from
http://www.med.umich.edu/umim/food-pyramid/dark_chocolate.htm
Pet care: Chocolate is dangerous for pets. (2013). Retrieved from
http://www.healthypet.com/PetCare/PetCareArticle.aspx?title=Chocolate_is_dangerous_for_pets
The chocolate industry. (2013, January 22). Retrieved from http://www.icco.org/aboutcocoa/chocolate-industry.html

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Dark (Side of) Chocolate: The Bitter and Sweet

Julia Gnamm, Alex Nelson,