#fair traid

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Listen, 50% of sales go to the charity Keep a Child Alive.

http://thehpalliance.org/2011/07/child-slavery-horcrux-update/

Africa’s Ivory Coast is home of at least half of the world’s cocoa. So doesn’t it make sense for major corporations such as Mars, Hershey, and Nestle to purchase their cocoa from there? Right. What makes no sense at all is the rising number of children being enslaved at these cocoa farms. Children ranging from ages eleven to fifteen, on average, are being used as laborers on the farms that produce the cocoa beans. As of 2005, approximately 286,000 children have been reported to be working on the Ivory Coast. Many of these children, around 12,000 to be exact, are said to have arrived by the means of child trafficking. Thousands upon thousands of children are being enslaved and “promised” money for working on these farms. But in reality, they almost never get paid. Although these stats are about six years old, I highly doubt that they’ve changed much: the average cocoa farm takes in about $30 USD to $108 USD per year for every member of the household.