Chocolate we cant seem to get enough of it each year we consume 7000000. 00 tonnes of it worldwide. If. It comes in countless varieties and price ranges made by anything from Small Artists and all chocolate makers to the International Giants that dominate the market. And the whole spectrum can be seen at confectionery trade fairs like these but the exhibitors are also here to teach children about where chocolate comes from. This is a good half you heard of ivory cruise is the biggest good producing country in the world through the cocoa through to the cocoa tree is called couples because the biggest is. We take good care of these plants. Surprisingly there are a critical voices at the exhibition as well Environmental Organization mighty earth is here to talk about the darker side of chocolate see them out if youve consumed kolker in the past 20 years youve publicly supported child labor and slavery so its work in the worst condition as a dangerous chemical has shut machetes dont have to carry very heavy loan for trade. This has long been known in the chocolate industry but men. Company still insists they are doing what they can to protect children and the environment. Is understood and the industry acknowledges the problems like the forestation and child labor of plantations us officials i assure you its they are working hard to improve the situation is that. Over the last 10 years more and more Cocoa Producers have pledged to save the forests and send children to school instead of work. But are they. The harbor of abidjan the economic capital of ivory coast the west african country produces 40 percent of the worlds entire cocoa supply. The trees that it comes from grow on small remote funs. There are around 6000000 of these farms worldwide and theyre mostly left to their own devices. Their harvest then goes through a long supply chain of traders and manufacturers before it ends up on our shelves. Im paul mora a French Television journalist and im interested in the very 1st link of this change. Much of the remaining rain forest in ivory coast lies in the south west about an 8 hour drive from the capital the region is known as the countrys cocoa belt. Even as we approach on the main road children run away when they see our camera its a sign were getting close to the plantations. Good why did you tell him to. Run away is he working for you. Know so why send him away. Child labor is forbidden in ivory coast punishable by up to 6 months in prison but its rarely prosecuted as its shown too hard to prove. In the far west of the country the roads turn into wet muddy dirt tracks. Militias patrol the area they say theyre here to protect the people. They collect money from everyone who passes through especially the cocoa trucks. It costs 100 francs to sometimes 500 if youve got a truck its 1000 francs. This is the protected juan de Forest Reserve about 10 kilometers from the liberian border it used to be part of the species rich west guinea and lowland rain forest. But theres not much left of the forest or the protected animals. The land was cleared to make way for thousands of illegal cocoa plantations. The green plants count trees the primary forest is dead. Officially no one is even allowed to enter the say area without permission from the forrestal thorazine but no one is here to enforce the rules. These hidden camps a little or signs. The farmers are working illegally on land that doesnt belong to them journalists on welcome here so we dont tell them what we do. Were accompanied by a member of the name g. O. C. Human rights. To go. Around 40 people live in these camps in huts men and children only to play drink water from the river and eat bananas and money that they grow in the forest themselves. If they people could count poles and cut them open with machetes all day. That it takes a lot of care and precision the shells the hard and their blades shop. The good its the only way to extract the precious beans that is still coated in a white fleshy pulp. Kind. Of the tongue. The beans are left out to dry before they have bagged up and sold to a cooperative. The workers a very young about a 3rd of them a children. d theyre extremely poor immigrants from neighboring the keno faso. Their homeland is a country plagued by drought hunger. And violence the cocoa business in ivory coast is often their only hope for survival. Drum on is 13 years old he could point and she go to school if you do good why dont i go to school then well. Yes you know my document dropped out. By those parents couldnt afford it anymore to. How did you end up here. Ok with my older brother a lot of good that i still dont get. Is the youngest in this camp who are 5 what about you youre no school. No. No no no i dont like school. You know i need to earn money for. This forest should in theory be monitored by ivory coasts ministry of water and forests. That were using me you ever see ranges here she yeah but they leave us alone with them and. The government does have an official plan to save the rainforest they want to redistribute the land reforest some of the areas that have been destroyed and use legal farms more efficiently more than 200000 Cocoa Farmers are meant to receive training. But next to nothing has actually happened so far meanwhile immigrants from bikini afonso continue to arrive to work on ivory coast illegal plantations. They come as children and stay for many years the forest becomes their prison when it sees is just one of its prisoners your parents stayed. With you so yeah and burkina faso you dont see them to develop a. I havent seen them for 6 years but. I reckon you were 15 when you arrived here of a needed a ride rectors on one record there yes now im 21 a long time without your parents yet its very painful you were born here and even back you know not one thing. We know was if you think you knew that this is the 1st year ive actually started earning money and if you does it is different as it is. Its one of the darkest secrets of these clandestine plantations People Like Us ceased toil for years without compensation only later to they receive a small piece of land in return to grow their own harvest and keep any returns it yields. He can finally make some money from selling cocoa this is how the camps in guam did they operate 1st the boys work for food then for payment in kind. Of. Poly has also started working on his 1st small plot of land with their devoted daughter you and your boss doesnt pay you this is no no i didnt get any money at all thats not a decided id work you know get my own. For the clover you work for free for 6 years exactly thats slave labor. Yes but thats just the way it is. This year i harvested i going to have. A bag and a heart thats 180 kilograms which sells for 210. 00 euros thats alis new annual income. Has just arrived from bikini afonso this is the start of his new life here. And then i. Think someones under your skin big can you tell me how much money he makes. For the. Night that i didnt. Know you all were and it developed into a period of how much. The question is making really sharp uncomfortable. I mean if i didnt think. It that way if he works in here literacy of his own plot. Ok thank you for tamara it right now hes working for free with you know hes working towards getting his own point of going imposed on it but its all that how old are you saying good thing do you know how old you are. One of us and he doesnt know. Where is your part of this thing. He was here but he was its a decision. The city of geek love is 40 kilometers east of the forest children from bikini afonso whove been sold by their parents arrive at this bus station to be bought by plantation owners. To observe one of these transactions our n. G. O. S pretends to be a farmer hes wearing a hidden camera. He finds 2 traffic is at the station waiting for the children to arrive from bikini afonso. They target the most vulnerable ones whod be willing to work just for food. They tell us whos in charge of this business. The next day we meet the old man as hes known here but trust me ill find kids for you no problem where you. Live im going to pay purposes. Ill be very happy to find children for you ill pay you for that. Ill be happy and so you. Disregard your profit ill be a parent get 200000 francs on this im. Just on the 200000. 00 to the parents or dollar part of the church while theyre below average for one of the long can they work for 34 years. To stay for 3 maybe 2. I cant pay more than 200000 dont worry theyre not all the same price. Or humans have different prices. Like sheep theyre not on birth to say. Finish your coffee and get the children. Just right now of course it is ok. 200000 west african c. F. A. Francs a worth roughly 300 euro. Rose thats the cost of 1. 00 slave for 3 years. While our guide has a coffee the old man gets a tip off that there are journalists investigating the illegal plantations because off the deal. The Young Workers have no idea of the dangers they face of the cocoa plantations one of the worst is invisible toxic herbicides because i know that you work in the fields. We come across a lot of children wearing big weed sprays on their backs often working without a mask we want to find out what theyre spraying. Isnt that harmful for you. You know. You wont get sick no. What you pour in there. So that good that the loser doesnt have a red lead yes that was the red live meaning the boys unless. The bottles with the red lead contain weed killer it sold everywhere but whats it made off. So surprised no idea what it is its chinese sure. To find out more about these weed killer we venture further into the forest to another illegal plantation the deeper we push the more we begin to realize why the forest is dying out and the one thing i would agree with. The ones that call. It kills we. Dont everything then you plant cocoa. Yes we spray the stuff everywhere its good to the children who work here use this product as wells even sitting member yes. Its gone for saying do you know what that is yes. We know the name but we dont know what it does we just feel wed sent. Glad to say it is a Broad Spectrum herbicide that kills almost full plant species and the World Health Organization has identified it as a probable cause an agent especially when applied without appropriate protective gear. Sunbury says no one told you it might be dangerous because i know we didnt know it was wrong or possibly even as a goddess of the cold when you see the protective clothing on the packaging doesnt that make you wonder lois said we know we know protection to use this product but we dont have any. So we just make do without it if. Thats how you make room to plunk our brains while thats right so basically if you use it once the vegetation has been destroyed the cocoa can grow quickly. Become of a faithful could result to you due to the trees there will want for we set them on fire. Was sick. To do do we use dry wood to burn them down. To feel like youve. Been you have most rights because political exactly. Count trees rely on the 1st of all souls of the forest but theyre also leeching them drawing. The Environmental Organization might documents the destruction. And there. Is a way to look at how i. Once kick our rice it takes over the entire forest as a full sun monoculture masses of chemicals are sprayed all over 20 years later the ground is completely hertha list so they push deeper into the forest into the same thing again and again they just keep moving further in thats why i say the cow plant is a cannibal cant even. Between 992015 over 90 percent of ivory coasts primary forests were cleared. Theyve mostly been replaced with could count trees. These continual deforestation is having an impact on the local and Global Climate less forest means less rain and without rain nothing will be able to grow here even cocoa. As the soil dries up so does a vital source of income in the region within a week in the guan deb a forest we witnessed all the crimes the industry pledged to eradicate including slave labor child labor and the destruction of the environment. However each and every day tons of these illegal cocoa beans into the regular supply chain the people who buy them up like to keep a low profile but we find a trading post at the edge of the forest that buys both legal and illegal produce these bags stored here come from at least 40 different farmers. And theres no marking on the bags to say where they came from their opened in the beans are all mixed together completely impossible to track. One of the biggest cooperatives in the region cooper webb used to work under the fair trade label. Displaying this logo means taking a stand against child labor and deforestation. In 2017 cooper we have had it certification suspended was there cocoa being grown in the protected rain forest. That thats ok micio. We have hardly any Business Partners in the classified rain forest and the number is marginal. Is it safe to go to said it when these trucks arrive with dozens of bags like these are you sure none of them come from the areas where child labor all deforestation and taking place lets be honest we saw child labor everywhere within the classified zone outside the zone everywhere you did as the old order as the buffer to. The table thats a suitable mostly is a bucket depends what you call child labor a man who takes his kids to the field on sundays is that child labor. Oh no thats not child labor just assume thats because. You know what im going from bikini afonso whos been here 5 years of all thats child labor raiola i mean normal. Normal so far i havent heard of any such cases of children working for one of our partners. To callao can you be sure and we inspect our producers every year. To the supply chain for chocolate is anything but transparent what exactly happens between the forest and now supermarkets. Thats at the cocoa you process where does it go how does it work whos buying this next quarters. Exporters. Like mislay. So its export us from ivory coast. To. The cooper web manager wont tell us who he sells to we come back in the evening and to drive us spills the beans. Yes. They both yes. Its kick our beans to congo a giant us conglomerate. Trades Agricultural Commodities among other things. Its an intermediary that silk cocoa on to the chocolate makers whose products we see in our supermarkets many people havent even heard the name before. Surprisingly we managed to get an interview with congo they usually prefer to stay under the radar. I keep vulgarly still the cocoa 2 that you get from my very cost to many Big Companies im not exactly sure nestle mars legal action and some others and i do it. Without knowing it most of his the reason Cocoa Products supplied by congo the Company Promises that its appliance clean cocoa but we have our doubts we confront the manager and his p. R. Officer with our images. Only has 2 kids and we only stayed for a few days and we saw children on the roadside working with machetes and weeding with dangerous herbicides. Thats terrible you should already know about the ideas on false he says c c c when its a child labor is something we do our best to prevent within the certified cooperative organisations that are at the heart of our Sustainable Development is the network. For sustainable hoka we offer a 50 percent premium cycle compared to the price of conventional green does it get us into it so 50 percent goes to the cooperative who you know you have the cash to visit local physics the boss are you sure the money is being redistributed. Even the cooperative is run by a well trained people its all for me. Our system works so please just imagine. Were committed to quality. The promise commits is to make a difference to them in return for the 50 percent premium. These cooperatives a supposed to actively improve the daily lines of farmers by building schools for instance this is a promise that cooper webb has also committed to. It is it hard to verify when children are being forced into labor so we have to build a school this year and one of our sections in the 6 year. Oh you do for cooper went for cooper web. Site when. You had i think well the location has already been chosen but wed rather keep it confidential and next year if you come here ill show you where you know i was already here i hope itll be there you know it will be there and she. Was wise in the location secret nothings been built. Because hes lying that he didnt tell the truth seems so that was the. Feel me i cant promise that things are running better in our industry than elsewhere to sebastopol and. Also pledged to no longer destroy the rain forest to grow cocoa they promised that by the year 2030 there would be 0 d. Forestation in a supply chain. For a station is a key issue for us as without the forest theres no rain and without rain we have no. Chocolate one of the. Things that sounds wonderful that you do business in one of the most of the forested places in west africa yes its very difficult. For a station in ivory coast between 116 and 2010 was 90 percent and when we arrived in 2010 that figure was already 80 percent did tweet this things need to change the force. Sure. How can you be sure that the cocoa superwomen selling it doesnt come from the classified forest. Which is basically a lawless zone where unspeakable things are happening. Or was ever since then weve implemented our reliable system that enables us to identify the producers were working with i think you would have a young officer politically or g. P. S. Tags with a barcode on. It. We collect all this and a database which allows us to link the product to the producer and he as it applies to. This system is mentioned on candles web site bar codes on cocoa bags a scanner with satellite connection that offers state of the art g. P. S. Traceability the problem is this footage is from ghana not ivory coast. Im sorry but i spent a week in this area i didnt see a single bag with a barcode cooper where they didnt have a single one but the so that information doesnt match what i have here at all because. We asked the cooper web manager about the possibility of using technology to identify the farmers and track the bags. They pull up a wall so how can we know whether it actually comes from the classified or we need a g. P. S. Position is good but who can help us with that the state has to do that he said. You know how they do it in ghana you can ghana theyre facing the same issues each bank has a barcode with a g. P. S. Identification that links it to the producer you can work like that could you make it happen simply mushy weve got so full of if they can do it in ghana we should be able to do it here on the ground but. I didnt get a conf