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Nestlé and Mondelēz among chocolate giants facing child slavery lawsuit over supply chain practices
A human rights firm has filed a lawsuit against major chocolate companies Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey and Mondelēz, following allegations of child slave labour in their cocoa supply chains.
Pictured: Fresh cocoa fruit. Stock image.
The class-action lawsuit, filed in Washington DC by International Rights Advocates, concerns eight individuals from Mali who claim that they were forced to work without pay on cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast during the 2000s and 2010s.
These plantations regularly supplied the corporates named during the period specified, the plaintiffs claim, with the end-user businesses having a “dominant influence” on practices. While the end-user businesses did not own the farms in question, International Rights Advocates is aiming to convince the courts that they “knowingly profited” from illegal child labour.
The Horrifying Reason These Major Chocolate Companies Could Be Facing Legal Action In The US Bloomberg/Getty Images
By Aimee Lamoureux/Feb. 16, 2021 12:10 pm EDT
The three major US chocolate companies Mars, Nestlé, and Hershey have been named in a groundbreaking class action lawsuit brought by the human rights firm International Rights Advocates, on behalf of eight young adults from Mali who claim they were forced to spend their childhoods working without pay on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast, according to
The Guardian. Other major corporations Cargill, Mondelez, Barry Callebaut, and Olam were also named in the suit.
In 2001, the major chocolate companies signed the Harkin-Engle Protocol, which pledged to eliminate the worst forms of child labor from their supply chain, but now, 20 years later, they have not only failed to do so, they are still unsure where the majority of their cocoa really comes from. Mars, maker of M&M s and Milky Way, can trac
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Some of the world's largest chocolate manufacturers have been accused of child slavery in a US court, a case that also involves agri-food and ingredients heavyweights. related to Barry Callebaut, Cargill, Hershey, Mars, Mondelez International, Nestle, Olam International, Confectionery, Dried foods, Corporate responsibility, Emerging markets,