PRESS RELEASES
Cocoa industry can't guarantee Easter without slavery
Wednesday 28th February, 9am, Nestle Headquarters, St. Georges House, Park Lane, Croydon, Surrey CR9 1NR
Children turned their back on Easter eggs to launch a campaign against child slavery at chocolate manufacturer Nestle's Headquarters. The youngsters were protesting about kids being used on cocoa plantations in Africa as part of the chocolate-making process. Three children from a youth club in Waterloo, south London, carried placards reading ‘for sale’, during a demonstration to stop the sale of slave trade chocolate. They also held Easter eggs with signs reading, ‘Warning—this product may contain the blood, sweat and tears of African child slaves’. The hard-hitting protest outside the Nestle HQ in Croydon was a bid by anti-trafficking campaigners, Stop The Traffik, to highlight the issue of forced child labour in Africa.
It is believed more than 15,000 children are trafficked into the Ivory Coast each year to work on coco and coffee plantations—many are taken from their homes by force or deception and made to work 12-hour-days.
Steve Chalke, Chair STOP THE TRAFFIK said: "There are more slaves alive today than there were trafficked in the 450 years of the slave trade. It is the fastest growing global crime—only the illegal arms trade is bigger. What these children are doing today is symbolic. Each one of them represents 5,000 children working in slavery in Africa. Nestlé's slogan is ‘Good Food, Good Life’, what they mean is it’s a good life for us—but at the expense of the thousands of child slaves on the Ivory Coast. It could be my child or my grandchild in this situation if I had been born in a different country. If one of the Nestle executives had just one of their children in slavery anywhere, it would be a crisis that would be sorted out by teatime. We want them, and other chocolate manufactures, to make their products slave-free.”
The children, from The Hub Youth Club in Waterloo, hope to put pressure on chocolate manufacturers to make these changes. Jesse Armstrong, 9, from Kennington said: "It makes me feel really sad that children have to work as slaves. I have asked for money for Easter so that I can buy my own chocolate. I buy fair trade now." Jermaine Nelson, 9, added: "We wrote a letter to Tony Blair to tell him how we feel about slavery, because if we don’t tell him he won’t do anything about it. We drew around our hands and sent the pictures to shown him that children are small and shouldn’t be working so hard." Ife Amusan, 11, said: "I never knew that children worked as slaves. I thought it was shocking and I wanted to help do something to stop it. "I have asked all my family not to buy me any Easter eggs." Youth Club organiser Tim Broadbent said: "These children wanted to help. We need to start educating the next generation of children to think globally and make the right consumer choices."
A spokeswoman from the Biscuit, Cake, Chocolate and Confectionary Association said: "We are firmly committed to creating a supply chain free from the worst forms of child labour and forced labour."
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