PRESS RELEASES
STOP THE TRAFFIK features on BBC1's Newsnight
Anti-Slavery campaigners STOP THE TRAFFIK (STT) have started a nationwide schools campaign to educate children that nearly half of the chocolate in their tuck shop comes from cocoa plantations that use slave labour.
The STT campaign will highlight the terrible plight of thousands of children in the Ivory Coast who are sold by traffickers to cocoa farmers and forced to work in terrible conditions to harvest the crops that are bought by the British chocolate industry.
This week BBC1 programme Newsnight highlighted a school doing just that, and they are just one of thousands of schools, community groups and businesses that with STT's help will be taking a stand about this inhuman trade that is currently going unnoticed.
A successful pilot project has already been completed in 22 schools in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. It was run by STT campaigner Mandy Flashman, who taught pupils about where the cocoa comes from that ends up as chocolate in their tuck shops.
Mandy Flashman said: "The school kids were shocked to hear that in the Ivory Coast children their age were forced to work on plantations, and would be beaten severely if they tried to escape. Most of the school children wanted to do something about it to raise awareness to this problem, even if it was just telling their friends and parents, but quite a few also arranged a demonstration in the centre of the town to tell other people that a lot of our chocolate snacks come from other people's misery."
An International Labour Organisation report showed that an estimated 12,000 children have been trafficked into the Ivory Coast, enslaved on cocoa plantations and forced to work long hours.
STOP THE TRAFFIK is demanding that the chocolate industry must give a Traffik Free Guarantee on its chocolate.
STT chairman Steve Chalke said: "So far food manufacturers give promises that their product is fat free, nut free, sugar free - all are possible so why can't we know that the chocolate we eat is slave free.
"The big chocolate manufacturers are not doing enough to stop a slave trade which they are fully aware of. Nestle, Mars and Cadbury must deliver a Traffik Free Guarantee by signing STOP THE TRAFFIK's Traffik Free Chocolate Pledge. Only then can we know that our chocolate snacks don't contain the blood, sweat and tears of African children."
For more information on STOP THE TRAFFIK call:
Ruth Dearnley
020 7921 4253 or 07795 606 708
ruth.dearnley@stopthetraffik.org
www.stopthetraffik.org
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