A documentary entitled “Slavery: A Global Investigation” showed that chocolate firms use child labor for harvesting cocoa to fill in their need in producing chocolate products. The film was set on Ivory Coast farms where boys narrated the brutality of being forced to work on the cocoa farms with the use of fists, feet, belts, and whips.
In response, Nestle said that they were not aware of the use of child labor in the farms where they source their cocoa. To show its sincerity, Nestle signed the Engel-Harkin Protocol in 2001 to guarantee that the company would get rid of child labor in the cocoa farms by 2005 . When 2005 came, the company failed to deliver its promise, as a group of farm workers from Mali filed a lawsuit against the company over child labor accusation. The workers told that after they were beaten, they were forced to work long hours with little food and without pay. Despite the denial of Nestle concerning its awareness of the situation, the workers insisted that the firm knows about it and even gave financial and technical assistance to farmers in order to lower the cost of cocoa products, thereby resulting in using child labor. The years went by and the company still failed to deliver its promise, paving the way for the signing of The Declaration of Joint Action to Support Implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol in 2010, with the aim of getting rid of child labor in its worst forms. Still, child labor in the cocoa farms on Ivory Coast continued to exist for years. The Fair Labor Association announced that Nestle still fell short of its commitment to end child labor as of 2015 .
Reference:
Revesz, R. (2016). Nestle is
being sued for allegedly using child slaves on cocoa farms. Independent.
Retrieved from
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nestle-is-being-sued-for-allegedly-using-child-slaves-on-cocoa-farms-a6806646.html
Salazar, H. (2015). Nestlé: Use
of Child Labor (2000-2015). Business Ethics Case Analyses. Retrieved from
http://businessethicscases.blogspot.com/2015/11/nestle-still-struggles-with-use-of.html
I think it is interesting that Nestle says they weren't aware of it but others are saying they were. This is definitely something they need to address because if they don't then that could mean their stakeholders might become unhappy. Also, it's appalling that they signed an agreement to get rid of child labor and then when the time was up they still hadn't fixed the problem. This is most likely a problem in other industries too, and it will be interesting to see whether we get rid of child labor in our lifetime.
ReplyDeleteYes, the big problem is Nestle uses child labor to produce cocoa, but they weren't aware of it. So Nestle should pay more attention on solving this problem.
DeleteIt could be true that Nestle was not fully aware at first of this issue; there could be many middle-men who do the actual work of partnering with cocoa farms, and those cocoa farms may not have been clear to Nestle about their labor policies. However, after many instances of this issue coming to light Nestle continued to deny being involved, and that is a huge problem. They should have taken action after the first instance to be more aware and involved with the farms that produce their products. Companies can definitely be as involved as they want with issues like these, and it appears that Nestle is almost uncaring about this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your idea that the nestle should be more aware with the farms. So they can avoid using child labor to produce their products. The Nestle should care about these issues.
DeleteOutsourcing could always cause a problem of unethical activity happens, and it is very hard for a company to manage or enforce an outsourcing service to completely act in an ethical way that the company wish. So when Nestle frist time announced that they were not aware the problem of child labor, I understood that it was hard to control an outsourcing services fully follow ethical rules. However, it surprised me that Nestle signed the the Engel-Harkin Protocol in 2001, and still didn't solve the problem at all after years. I feel so bad for those children who had forced to do work and got less paid, almost nothing to eat. This is totally illegal, and I believe this is not just happened in Nestle. I think this problem should attach people's attendance.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that it was hard to control the cocoa made by Child labor. However, I think the most important thing for the Nestle is to make money. So they didn't care about this issues. The Child labor also happens in other Chocolate companies, such as the Hershey company, Mars and so on.
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