Hershey's Child Labour Essay

“Each year, as many as 2.7 million healthy years of life are lost due to child labor.” Imagine that you are being held as a slave and forced to do dangerous labor as a child. Many people are being held captive and are being forced to do perilous things, sweating their lives away, not taking breaks, and being put in adult like situations. In fact right now there are 15-20 million children working as slaves. Although it provides children and families with money, and possibly something to learn from, children should not be enslaved or forced to do labor because it is very dangerous and can damage a child for the rest of their life.

Child labor generally involves agricultural or industrial work, often putting young children in very dangerous working conditions. So that’s problably why there is still child labor is other countries and not in the U.S. United states knows is not good to have kids working like that.

Slave children were treated horribly. “The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush…” (Douglass) When they were fed they had to eat out of trough like pigs while they would have to eat corn meal boiled into a mush. Slaves were never given enough time to finish their meal and were rushed to get back to work. They

The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear. The lash and the foul talk of her master and his sons are her teachers. When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into submission to their will.(Jacobs.ch.9)

The novel Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys does an excellent job illustrating the troubling issue of child labor. The extent of child labor in a country is directly linked by the nature and extent of poverty within it. Child labor deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity. It is detrimental to physical and mental development. Today, there are an estimated 246 million child laborers around the globe. This irritating social issue is not only violates a nation’s minimum age laws , it also involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, and illicit activities. In Between Shades of Grey , Lina and her ten year old brother are unrightfully charged 25 years of

In this paper I’ll discuss the life of enslaved children and what those experiences tells us about the institution of slavery. Over the course of the semester we have been introduced to several readings concerning the enslavement of Africans. I will be basing my paper on information gathered from these readings, “African American Voices,” By Steven Mintz, “Prince Among Slaves,” By Terry Alford, “Lose Your Mother” By Saidiya Hartman and lastly a secondary piece of literature by Frederick Douglass, “My Bondage My Freedom.” The life of a child captive in slavery would vary depending on their environment and whom they belonged to. Their experiences ranged from what was perceived as normal, aside from the fact that they were slaves all the way to cruel and unusual punishment. Childhood is essential to understanding slavery, focusing on children brings attention to the brutality of slavery, and also brings to light the system of enslavement children and parents dealt with regarding its sufferings and horrors. Even though some enslaved children had normal lives and were unaware that they were slaves at all; slavery was very harsh for most children. They were expected to do adult work, and punished when unable to do so, also many children were separated from their families at a young age.

The next time when you are out on your shopping trip, chances you may have support a business that exploits children. It is very disturbing and heartbreaking to learn many children are chained to looms for 12 hours a day because families need to have their child bringing home a small amount of moneys. Child labor has always been a difficult subject to address, the topic have become much more complicated and prolific.

This is clear proof that 'cocoa' slavery is a direct violation of the human rights as children are being forced into these situations it is not a self-driven action.

Children are taken into slavery at extremely young ages. As early as three years old children are beaten, forced to do anything asked, request nothing, speak only when spoken to, and display no emotion. They are forced to act like mindless robots and it becomes all they know since they are taken at such a young age. Slavery is not only limited to children, however, (www.mathaba.net/news/?x=622759). Any and everybody of all ages can be a victim of slavery. In Haiti, there is something called “Restavek system,” a century-old system under which

There's a long history about child labor throughout out the years from the beginning of time until now. “Child labor started in mid-1800s in developed countries like Great Britain and U.S. Child labor was a part of life. Great Britain in the lates 1800s, parliaments investigated abuses against children working in factories. While U.S. started in early 2900s to determine the extent of child labor in industry” (Zoltan, Melanie). In the twenty-first century, people started to talk on child labor centered on these less-developed regions, specifically on countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, China, and Malaysia, because child labor is still going on know there (Zoltan, Melanie). The industrial revolution made a really big part of child labor, because

The immorality of child labor does not stop at not providing children their basic needs

The Hershey Company is the largest chocolate producer in the United States. They are a global producer of chocolate, confectionary sugar, candy, and other chocolate-related grocery items. Hershey was founded in 1894 by Milton Hershey (Key, 2015). In 1900, the company started producing milk chocolate in bar form, wafers, and other shapes. Since there was mass production, Mr. Hershey was the first American to develop a formula for manufacturing affordable chocolate. In 1907, the famous Hershey Kisses was hand wrapped and introduced. H.B. Reese was a former Hershey company employee, in 1923, he discovered the goodness of chocolate covered in peanut butter known today as Reese’s candy. Later in the 90’s, several more widely known candies were formed such as Krackle and Mr. Goodbar. In 1977, the famous Twizzlers licorice was acquired as part of Y&S Candies. Through all of Hershey history, it is still the leading manufacturer of quality chocolate (Our Heritage, n.d.). The entirety of Hershey's mission statement reads, "Continuing Milton Hershey's legacy of commitment to consumers, community and children, we provide high-quality HERSHEY's products while conducting our business in a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable manner". Hershey Company’s vision is to be “The world’s first choice for chocolate everywhere, every time.”

When child labor is examined, individuals and societies feel moral and emotional tugs. The Freudian super ego is appalled that, especially in the modern world, there would be such a preposterous issue. The Freudian id would rationalize numerous reasons, even justifications, of why child labor exists and would be necessary. Every corner of the earth has known this conflict to one degree or another. In the United States, the conflict is activated or denied with the purchase of an expensive sneaker. The child who is exploited on the other side of the world rarely receives a nod of concern for the slavery he endures. Countless items are similarly purchased with similar child working conditions. The children of

West African chocolate producers have been at the heart of shocking allegations that they are using children as slaves to work on their plantations. Children (usually ages 12-16) are involved, because they work on the plantations under very poor conditions and with low pay. Many popular chocolate companies are also involved, considering the fact that they buy chocolate from these plantations. The chocolate industry is determined to grow cocoa that profits the government and their country, but in order to gain a larger profit, they distribute below-poverty wages for the farmers who produce it. Low wages mean farmers cannot hire the labor needed to harvest the crop, and encourages the use of child slavery and the worst forms of child labor.

According to an article on the Bloomberg Business website titled Hershey Investors Suing Over Child Labor Can Pursue Files, a Louisiana pension fund investors raised questions about Hershey executives’ knowledge of how much of the company’s cocoa, grown in West Africa may have been produced by using child labor. The article details the dilemma this created for the Hershey Co. which was sparred by the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System investors, who holds Hershey shares, sued last year seeking access to the company’s records regarding cocoa acquisitions from West African suppliers who did not comply with international child-labor restrictions, and as Feely (2014) states “The fund contends Hershey officials put the candy company’s reputation at risk by relying on supplies produced by cocoa farms in West African countries that flout child-labor laws”(Feeley, 2014). Consequently, Hershey Company have been served with a lawsuit by the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System investors seeking to force the company to turn over records about cocoa from African farms that may use illegal child labor.