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
