[HN Gopher] Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS ... ___________________________________________________________________ Cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana: CBS News investigation Author : hammock Score : 68 points Date : 2023-12-01 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cbsnews.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cbsnews.com) | java-man wrote: | Charge the CEOs of companies that buy cocoa with child abuse. | maxwell wrote: | They were charged, but the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. | | https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/supreme-court-rules-in-favor... | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _were charged_ | | They were sued. That's reasonable. (SCOTUS overturned it. I | don't know the relevant law well enough to comment on it.) | | Criminally charging executives would be tantamount to putting | Ghana's cocoa sector under U.S. sanctions. | tdb7893 wrote: | It'll be a cold day in hell before a CEO gets charged for any | crimes that they oversee (at least without seriously defrauding | another corporation or rich person). Not a single Sackler is in | jail for causing the opioid crisis. | bell-cot wrote: | > Munira, 15, is one of those children. [...] Last year, her | family harvested only one bag of decent-quality cocoa. A | 140-pound bag of the product fetches only about $115. | | Sounds like "child labor" is downstream of the _actual_ problem. | janice1999 wrote: | Call me a bleeding heart but child labor is an 'actual' | problem. You can keep destructing societal issues until you | reinvent the universe from scratch. It may be difficult to | solve global poverty but it's not a lot to ask extremely | profitable companies to enforce the supply chain checks they've | committed to. | josu wrote: | Child labor tends to go away with the increase in GDP. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Children go away when women are empowered. To starve the | world of child labor, empower women. | | https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#empowerment-of- | wom... | MyShawdowySelf wrote: | So your solution to not treating children baddly is to | not have children? Seems a bit strange instead of just | ... you know pay people a descent wage so they don't have | to put they children in arms way | toomuchtodo wrote: | As my uncouth grandfather used to say: "Wishes in one | hand, shit in the other, which will fill first?" These | children work because they have no choice. They are paid | these wages because they can't make more. | | I suggest empowering women who don't want children to not | have them. If we look at the developed world, it is clear | the total fertility rate will settle far below | replacement rate (2.1) and child labor will dry up when | women are educated and have robust access to family | planning. | | Perpetual labor shortages are a better outcome than | surplus labor and lives of suffering, most especially | children suffering. | | By all means, open your wallet to pay these kids a living | wage. I'll even help you bootstrap the direct cash | transfer mechanisms via mobile payments if you have deep | pockets. But that is unlikely to happen. Hope is not a | strategy. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _child labor is an 'actual' problem_ | | I think they meant root, not actual. Fixing the child labor | problem on its own is unlikely to improve these kids' lives. | bell-cot wrote: | If (as the article states) the total value of the cocoa that | Murina's entire family managed to harvest, in an entire year, | was $115 - that sounds like destitute, _desperate_ poverty to | me. If actually living in such circumstances, ~all humans put | their kids to work, and lie as needed to survive. | | And if the "child labor certification" inspectors you send | are anything resembling decent human beings, then they will | send back endless lies in their reports, saying "no child | labor here" - because they prefer lying to seeing yet more | farm family members die of starvation, because the families | could not afford luxuries like food. | rurp wrote: | Yeah, exactly. Under these types of conditions most kids | will be starving and living in dangerous conditions. Not | working doesn't mean they get to go to school or to a | playground, it means their family is even more starving. | mopsi wrote: | In Europe and the US, it wasn't too long ago either when | families could only afford to send _some_ of their children | to school. Others had to work from a very early age to | support the family. If you ban child labor without offering | anything to supplement the lost income, then you 're just | harming them more. | | I think it would be better to frame the issue as why so | little of the profit made from their work reaches them. It's | insane to see cocoa farmers so poor that they've never tasted | chocolate, as can be seen here: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEN4hcZutO0 | abracadaniel wrote: | If you ban child labor the jobs don't go away. The process | still requires the same amount of labor. So, employment | will increase, and with the higher labor demand, so will | wages. Either way, the product is profitable and in high | demand so the same or more money will be spent producing | it. Child labor is one of the reasons why so little of the | profit from their work reaches them. They're subsidizing | the industry by sacrificing their children to increase | labor availability. | 1oooqooq wrote: | Are you suggesting the workers unite and take over the means of | production, comrade bell-cot? | bigbillheck wrote: | Worth a try. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | > Munira, 15, is one of those children. She has worked in the | cocoa fields since she was 5 years old. Education is a luxury, | with her school an hour-long walk away and transportation options | expensive. Last year, her family harvested only one bag of | decent-quality cocoa. A 140-pound bag of the product fetches only | about $115. | | I think child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem and | cracking down on child labor without providing better financial | support for the families will actually lead to worse problems. | | Reading this, it doesn't sound like if the child wasn't working | harvesting cocoa, she would be in school studying. Likely, either | her family would starve or she would be be doing more dangerous | work (perhaps even prostitution). | benj111 wrote: | 150 years ago child labour in the West was common. If you can | barely afford food then everyone needs to work to earn money. | | I'm kind of in two minds, from their point of view there's | probably nothing wrong, but that's incompatible with our | morals. But then we obviously aren't willing to pay for those | morals. | User23 wrote: | Child labor is still not uncommon in agricultural communities | in the USA. I believe the federal law is age 12 and up for | farm work. And de facto if not de jure there is no age limit | on children working their own family's farm. Granted one | might call that chores rather than labor. | | And the minimum age to babysit is as low as 8 based on a | quick search. | benj111 wrote: | Yes. I was thinking more, chimney sweeping and factory | work. | | My point was we were poor then and had different standards. | They probably have those same standards as we had for the | same reasons. We have different standards now, so it's on | us to do something if we want to. | tdb7893 wrote: | It depends what you mean by child labor. My experience is | that the children help on the farm but for the most part do | school full time until at least their latter teenage years. | It's pretty different than the child labor in the article. | the-alchemist wrote: | This. | | We would all benefit from more cause and effect analysis in our | media. | | - Let's say we increase prices that we pay cocoa farmers, even | double the price | | - Is this extra enough to send the girl to school an hour away, | pay for her books, etc.? If you pay the family more, how do you | know they would spend it on the girl's education? Maybe fixing | the water well or building a sturdier house is more important. | Or paying off debt. | | - The school is an hour away, the girl might not feel safe | being away from home for so long without any adults. She might | prefer being with her family. So... boarding school? Are the | teachers qualified? (Go read about absentee teachers in Indian | schools.) | | - Also, if cocoa farming becomes more profitable, it might | encourage _more_ child labor as parents pull their kids from | school to work "on the family farm". | | - If cocoa farming is profitable enough, it might invite a | protection racket. Go Google for Mexican cartels and avocados. | | Ironically, here in the U.S., we kinda glorify "working on the | family farm", expecting kids to help on their parents' farms. | Isn't that family doing something similar? | | I am in no way glorifying child labor. I think it's sad and I | wish I could adopt all these children and give them the quality | of life I enjoy. | | But complex problems require complex solutions. Unfortunately, | we--humanity as a whole--have not found a universal solution to | end human suffering as a whole, even the small subset of misery | like child labor. | | Historically, almost every country that has "developed" into an | "industrialized" nation has had a very difficult, dangerous, | violent learning curve. Kids in coal mines in the U.S., 18th | century Dickensian English was a hellhole... | bmacho wrote: | This not. | | > - Also, if cocoa farming becomes more profitable, it might | encourage _more_ child labor as parents pull their kids from | school to work "on the family farm". | | Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can help | you at work? | all2 wrote: | > Wtf. No? Do you pull your kids from school so they can | help you at work? | | If I were in a position of "family eats or family doesn't | eat" I would be sorely tempted to tap my kids as extra | income earners. This isn't a particularly new problem in | the world. The West has only gotten stringent on child | labor in the last century, and you're seeing other | countries coming up that are also struggling with the issue | at hand: enough money to feed the family. | | We're rather privileged in the West in that we don't really | struggle for necessities. Even our impoverished have | clothing, shelter, and food. We don't really understand | what it means to be truly impoverished. Nor do we | understand the kinds of decisions a father or mother must | make in order to ensure their survival and the survival of | their children. | walterlb wrote: | The countries that have "developed" have increased pressures | on less developed nations, and caused or exacerbated | problemsin the areas they have exploited in order to develop. | foobarian wrote: | > - If cocoa farming is profitable enough, it might invite a | protection racket. Go Google for Mexican cartels and | avocados. | | Ah yes, then also: | | https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936567302/planet-money-the- | le... | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36900201 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148110 | autoexec wrote: | > Historically, almost every country that has "developed" | into an "industrialized" nation has had a very difficult, | dangerous, violent learning curve. | | Historically, countries that industrialized didn't have an | extensive history of examples to learn from and they had to | figure it out for themselves. Every currently developing | country doesn't get their own turn at being horrible to | people or the environment. | | The developed world should expect developing nations to learn | from history and avoid the errors made in the past just as | we'd expect them to take advantage of the advances in science | and technology that have been reached. | talldatethrow wrote: | I feel for the kid, but to be realistic it doesn't take several | people all year to grow 140 lbs of something. | | This is just a small portion of all the farming they do, | including for themselves to eat. | autoexec wrote: | This is exactly the same argument that was often used to | justify slavery in the US and after all these years it's still | not compelling. Ending slavery in the US didn't "lead to worse | problems" is was a massive improvement. People who are free may | thrive or struggle, but they'll do it without a master which is | always an improvement. There are no solutions to those deeper | problems that impact people in poverty which would be prevented | by freeing them from exploitation. If you want people's | situation to improve, let's do both. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _child labor is actually a symptom of a deeper problem_ | | It is. But we should see it as a symptom of a problem to be | cured. | | Simply banning procurement would be a mistake, as you observe. | But an NGO could be put in place that _e.g._ pays parents | picking cocoa a stipend if they can verify their kids went to | school. | | Put another way, we can use the global consensus that child | labour is bad as activation energy to spur and focus the wider | reforms that are needed. | tomcam wrote: | At this point the only things I can eat ethically are sawdust and | cockroaches | AussieWog93 wrote: | Is that FSC certified sawdust, or are you destroying an old- | growth rainforest? | solardev wrote: | Free-range, grassfed roaches? | Avshalom wrote: | >cockroaches | | They're just one enterprising rebrand away from being Urban | Wall Shrimp. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | John Oliver did a segment on that: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwHMDjc7qJ8 | | He went into the whole child labor thing. | wusher wrote: | If you think that's bad, wait until you find out who's mining the | metals for the solar panels. | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/03/child-la... | throwaway5752 wrote: | They are talking about cobalt from coltan - cobalt-tanatalum - | ore, 70% of which is used in vehicle and device batteries. Not | solar panels. Your article you linked contained the word | "solar" and none of them were related to child mining of coltan | for solar panels. | | They did allude to energy storage in batteries for wind and | solar sources, and if you look there are a number of research | projects to reduce cobalt consumption in grid scale storage and | other battery cathode applications. | | Your summary of the article is misleading and incorrect. | zozbot234 wrote: | So it turns out that the enslaved Oompa-Loompas in Willy Wonka's | chocolate factory were just truth in advertising. There's quite a | bit of irony to that particular controversy. | teachrdan wrote: | For those who don't get OP's reference, in the original version | of the book, Oompa-Loompas were literal slaves form Africa. The | publisher made Roald Dahl change them to mythical creatures. | ilrwbwrkhv wrote: | I mean this is nothing new? If you bought an iPhone you were part | of exploiting child labor. Will you stop buying an iPhone? Of | course not. We should ideally stop showing such fake interest in | these things and focus on other things. | | https://www.thefp.com/p/your-iphone-was-built-with-child | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _should ideally stop showing such fake interest in these | things_ | | Perfect is the enemy of good [1]. We don't have to completely | solve a problem to make discussing it worthwhile. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good | bouncycastle wrote: | All I see these days is kids watching mindless youtube/tik-tok | videos all day. Perhaps sending them to a farm for some movement | might actually be good for them & give them a sense of | accomplishment. Seize their phones before they go. | yawboakye wrote: | ghanaian here: | | it's not the business of mars (m&m makers) to ensure that no | children are exploited during the production of the cocoa beans. | and americans shouldn't eat their chocolate with some trepidation | that they might be eating the body and blood of a 5-yo. | | we, not they, commit these boys and girls to these activities, of | our own volition. it's a fucked up society that looks to hold an | external party responsible for ills within itself. if child labor | is bad, we don't need mars and the rest of the world to tell us | so. we should be civilized enough to get ourselves out of the | ongoing era of barbarism and brutishness that has plagued the | continent. fuck! | autoexec wrote: | > it's a fucked up society that looks to hold an external party | responsible for ills within itself. | | I agree with you there, however Mars knowingly exploits | children so that they can stuff their own pockets with cash. | That too is sick and the US should hold them accountable for | that for our own sake. | | We've spent a long time profiting from slavery in this country | and more recently we've patted ourselves on the back for ending | slavery while in reality we simply outsourced it and moved the | plantations out of sight. We should absolutely think about what | we're supporting while we buy or eat chocolate. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-01 23:00 UTC)