[HN Gopher] Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS ...
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Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News
investigation
Author : hammock
Score : 68 points
Date : 2023-12-01 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbsnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbsnews.com)
| java-man wrote:
| Charge the CEOs of companies that buy cocoa with child abuse.
| maxwell wrote:
| They were charged, but the Supreme Court ruled in their favor.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/supreme-court-rules-in-favor...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _were charged_
|
| They were sued. That's reasonable. (SCOTUS overturned it. I
| don't know the relevant law well enough to comment on it.)
|
| Criminally charging executives would be tantamount to putting
| Ghana's cocoa sector under U.S. sanctions.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| It'll be a cold day in hell before a CEO gets charged for any
| crimes that they oversee (at least without seriously defrauding
| another corporation or rich person). Not a single Sackler is in
| jail for causing the opioid crisis.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Munira, 15, is one of those children. [...] Last year, her
| family harvested only one bag of decent-quality cocoa. A
| 140-pound bag of the product fetches only about $115.
|
| Sounds like "child labor" is downstream of the _actual_ problem.
| janice1999 wrote:
| Call me a bleeding heart but child labor is an 'actual'
| problem. You can keep destructing societal issues until you
| reinvent the universe from scratch. It may be difficult to
| solve global poverty but it's not a lot to ask extremely
| profitable companies to enforce the supply chain checks they've
| committed to.
| josu wrote:
| Child labor tends to go away with the increase in GDP.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Children go away when women are empowered. To starve the
| world of child labor, empower women.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#empowerment-of-
| wom...
| MyShawdowySelf wrote:
| So your solution to not treating children baddly is to
| not have children? Seems a bit strange instead of just
| ... you know pay people a descent wage so they don't have
| to put they children in arms way
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| As my uncouth grandfather used to say: "Wishes in one
| hand, shit in the other, which will fill first?" These
| children work because they have no choice. They are paid
| these wages because they can't make more.
|
| I suggest empowering women who don't want children to not
| have them. If we look at the developed world, it is clear
| the total fertility rate will settle far below
| replacement rate (2.1) and child labor will dry up when
| women are educated and have robust access to family
| planning.
|
| Perpetual labor shortages are a better outcome than
| surplus labor and lives of suffering, most especially
| children suffering.
|
| By all means, open your wallet to pay these kids a living
| wage. I'll even help you bootstrap the direct cash
| transfer mechanisms via mobile payments if you have deep
| pockets. But that is unlikely to happen. Hope is not a
| strategy.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _child labor is an 'actual' problem_
|
| I think they meant root, not actual. Fixing the child labor
| problem on its own is unlikely to improve these kids' lives.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If (as the article states) the total value of the cocoa that
| Murina's entire family managed to harvest, in an entire year,
| was $115 - that sounds like destitute, _desperate_ poverty to
| me. If actually living in such circumstances, ~all humans put
| their kids to work, and lie as needed to survive.
|
| And if the "child labor certification" inspectors you send
| are anything resembling decent human beings, then they will
| send back endless lies in their reports, saying "no child
| labor here" - because they prefer lying to seeing yet more
| farm family members die of starvation, because the families
| could not afford luxuries like food.
| rurp wrote:
| Yeah, exactly. Under these types of conditions most kids
| will be starving and living in dangerous conditions. Not
| working doesn't mean they get to go to school or to a
| playground, it means their family is even more starving.
| mopsi wrote:
| In Europe and the US, it wasn't too long ago either when
| families could only afford to send _some_ of their children
| to school. Others had to work from a very early age to
| support the family. If you ban child labor without offering
| anything to supplement the lost income, then you 're just
| harming them more.
|
| I think it would be better to frame the issue as why so
| little of the profit made from their work reaches them. It's
| insane to see cocoa farmers so poor that they've never tasted
| chocolate, as can be seen here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEN4hcZutO0
| abracadaniel wrote:
| If you ban child labor the jobs don't go away. The process
| still requires the same amount of labor. So, employment
| will increase, and with the higher labor demand, so will
| wages. Either way, the product is profitable and in high
| demand so the same or more money will be spent producing
| it. Child labor is one of the reasons why so little of the
| profit from their work reaches them. They're subsidizing
| the industry by sacrificing their children to increase
| labor availability.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| Are you suggesting the workers unite and take over the means of
| production, comrade bell-cot?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| Worth a try.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Munira, 15, is one of those children. She has worked in the
| cocoa fields since she was 5 years old. Education is a luxury,
| with her school an hour-long walk away and transportation options
| expensive. Last year, her family harvested only one bag of
| decent-quality cocoa. A 140-pound bag of the product fetches only
| about $115.
|
| I think child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem and
| cracking down on child labor without providing better financial
| support for the families will actually lead to worse problems.
|
| Reading this, it doesn't sound like if the child wasn't working
| harvesting cocoa, she would be in school studying. Likely, either
| her family would starve or she would be be doing more dangerous
| work (perhaps even prostitution).
| benj111 wrote:
| 150 years ago child labour in the West was common. If you can
| barely afford food then everyone needs to work to earn money.
|
| I'm kind of in two minds, from their point of view there's
| probably nothing wrong, but that's incompatible with our
| morals. But then we obviously aren't willing to pay for those
| morals.
| User23 wrote:
| Child labor is still not uncommon in agricultural communities
| in the USA. I believe the federal law is age 12 and up for
| farm work. And de facto if not de jure there is no age limit
| on children working their own family's farm. Granted one
| might call that chores rather than labor.
|
| And the minimum age to babysit is as low as 8 based on a
| quick search.
| benj111 wrote:
| Yes. I was thinking more, chimney sweeping and factory
| work.
|
| My point was we were poor then and had different standards.
| They probably have those same standards as we had for the
| same reasons. We have different standards now, so it's on
| us to do something if we want to.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| It depends what you mean by child labor. My experience is
| that the children help on the farm but for the most part do
| school full time until at least their latter teenage years.
| It's pretty different than the child labor in the article.
| the-alchemist wrote:
| This.
|
| We would all benefit from more cause and effect analysis in our
| media.
|
| - Let's say we increase prices that we pay cocoa farmers, even
| double the price
|
| - Is this extra enough to send the girl to school an hour away,
| pay for her books, etc.? If you pay the family more, how do you
| know they would spend it on the girl's education? Maybe fixing
| the water well or building a sturdier house is more important.
| Or paying off debt.
|
| - The school is an hour away, the girl might not feel safe
| being away from home for so long without any adults. She might
| prefer being with her family. So... boarding school? Are the
| teachers qualified? (Go read about absentee teachers in Indian
| schools.)
|
| - Also, if cocoa farming becomes more profitable, it might
| encourage _more_ child labor as parents pull their kids from
| school to work "on the family farm".
|
| - If cocoa farming is profitable enough, it might invite a
| protection racket. Go Google for Mexican cartels and avocados.
|
| Ironically, here in the U.S., we kinda glorify "working on the
| family farm", expecting kids to help on their parents' farms.
| Isn't that family doing something similar?
|
| I am in no way glorifying child labor. I think it's sad and I
| wish I could adopt all these children and give them the quality
| of life I enjoy.
|
| But complex problems require complex solutions. Unfortunately,
| we--humanity as a whole--have not found a universal solution to
| end human suffering as a whole, even the small subset of misery
| like child labor.
|
| Historically, almost every country that has "developed" into an
| "industrialized" nation has had a very difficult, dangerous,
| violent learning curve. Kids in coal mines in the U.S., 18th
| century Dickensian English was a hellhole...
| bmacho wrote:
| This not.
|
| > - Also, if cocoa farming becomes more profitable, it might
| encourage _more_ child labor as parents pull their kids from
| school to work "on the family farm".
|
| Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can help
| you at work?
| all2 wrote:
| > Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can
| help you at work?
|
| If I were in a position of "family eats or family doesn't
| eat" I would be sorely tempted to tap my kids as extra
| income earners. This isn't a particularly new problem in
| the world. The West has only gotten stringent on child
| labor in the last century, and you're seeing other
| countries coming up that are also struggling with the issue
| at hand: enough money to feed the family.
|
| We're rather privileged in the West in that we don't really
| struggle for necessities. Even our impoverished have
| clothing, shelter, and food. We don't really understand
| what it means to be truly impoverished. Nor do we
| understand the kinds of decisions a father or mother must
| make in order to ensure their survival and the survival of
| their children.
| walterlb wrote:
| The countries that have "developed" have increased pressures
| on less developed nations, and caused or exacerbated
| problemsin the areas they have exploited in order to develop.
| foobarian wrote:
| > - If cocoa farming is profitable enough, it might invite a
| protection racket. Go Google for Mexican cartels and
| avocados.
|
| Ah yes, then also:
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936567302/planet-money-the-
| le...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36900201
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148110
| autoexec wrote:
| > Historically, almost every country that has "developed"
| into an "industrialized" nation has had a very difficult,
| dangerous, violent learning curve.
|
| Historically, countries that industrialized didn't have an
| extensive history of examples to learn from and they had to
| figure it out for themselves. Every currently developing
| country doesn't get their own turn at being horrible to
| people or the environment.
|
| The developed world should expect developing nations to learn
| from history and avoid the errors made in the past just as
| we'd expect them to take advantage of the advances in science
| and technology that have been reached.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| I feel for the kid, but to be realistic it doesn't take several
| people all year to grow 140 lbs of something.
|
| This is just a small portion of all the farming they do,
| including for themselves to eat.
| autoexec wrote:
| This is exactly the same argument that was often used to
| justify slavery in the US and after all these years it's still
| not compelling. Ending slavery in the US didn't "lead to worse
| problems" is was a massive improvement. People who are free may
| thrive or struggle, but they'll do it without a master which is
| always an improvement. There are no solutions to those deeper
| problems that impact people in poverty which would be prevented
| by freeing them from exploitation. If you want people's
| situation to improve, let's do both.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem_
|
| It is. But we should see it as a symptom of a problem to be
| cured.
|
| Simply banning procurement would be a mistake, as you observe.
| But an NGO could be put in place that _e.g._ pays parents
| picking cocoa a stipend if they can verify their kids went to
| school.
|
| Put another way, we can use the global consensus that child
| labour is bad as activation energy to spur and focus the wider
| reforms that are needed.
| tomcam wrote:
| At this point the only things I can eat ethically are sawdust and
| cockroaches
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Is that FSC certified sawdust, or are you destroying an old-
| growth rainforest?
| solardev wrote:
| Free-range, grassfed roaches?
| Avshalom wrote:
| >cockroaches
|
| They're just one enterprising rebrand away from being Urban
| Wall Shrimp.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| John Oliver did a segment on that:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwHMDjc7qJ8
|
| He went into the whole child labor thing.
| wusher wrote:
| If you think that's bad, wait until you find out who's mining the
| metals for the solar panels.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/03/child-la...
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| They are talking about cobalt from coltan - cobalt-tanatalum -
| ore, 70% of which is used in vehicle and device batteries. Not
| solar panels. Your article you linked contained the word
| "solar" and none of them were related to child mining of coltan
| for solar panels.
|
| They did allude to energy storage in batteries for wind and
| solar sources, and if you look there are a number of research
| projects to reduce cobalt consumption in grid scale storage and
| other battery cathode applications.
|
| Your summary of the article is misleading and incorrect.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| So it turns out that the enslaved Oompa-Loompas in Willy Wonka's
| chocolate factory were just truth in advertising. There's quite a
| bit of irony to that particular controversy.
| teachrdan wrote:
| For those who don't get OP's reference, in the original version
| of the book, Oompa-Loompas were literal slaves form Africa. The
| publisher made Roald Dahl change them to mythical creatures.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I mean this is nothing new? If you bought an iPhone you were part
| of exploiting child labor. Will you stop buying an iPhone? Of
| course not. We should ideally stop showing such fake interest in
| these things and focus on other things.
|
| https://www.thefp.com/p/your-iphone-was-built-with-child
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _should ideally stop showing such fake interest in these
| things_
|
| Perfect is the enemy of good [1]. We don't have to completely
| solve a problem to make discussing it worthwhile.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good
| bouncycastle wrote:
| All I see these days is kids watching mindless youtube/tik-tok
| videos all day. Perhaps sending them to a farm for some movement
| might actually be good for them & give them a sense of
| accomplishment. Seize their phones before they go.
| yawboakye wrote:
| ghanaian here:
|
| it's not the business of mars (m&m makers) to ensure that no
| children are exploited during the production of the cocoa beans.
| and americans shouldn't eat their chocolate with some trepidation
| that they might be eating the body and blood of a 5-yo.
|
| we, not they, commit these boys and girls to these activities, of
| our own volition. it's a fucked up society that looks to hold an
| external party responsible for ills within itself. if child labor
| is bad, we don't need mars and the rest of the world to tell us
| so. we should be civilized enough to get ourselves out of the
| ongoing era of barbarism and brutishness that has plagued the
| continent. fuck!
| autoexec wrote:
| > it's a fucked up society that looks to hold an external party
| responsible for ills within itself.
|
| I agree with you there, however Mars knowingly exploits
| children so that they can stuff their own pockets with cash.
| That too is sick and the US should hold them accountable for
| that for our own sake.
|
| We've spent a long time profiting from slavery in this country
| and more recently we've patted ourselves on the back for ending
| slavery while in reality we simply outsourced it and moved the
| plantations out of sight. We should absolutely think about what
| we're supporting while we buy or eat chocolate.
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