preview

The Pros And Cons Of Chocolate

Decent Essays
Open Document
Do you enjoy eating chocolate? Many people around the world love eating chocolate. People in the United States eat around 120 chocolate bars each year. But would you still enjoy eating that chocolate bar if you knew that the chocolate that is used to make those delicious bars comes from the forced labor of young children? Chocolate is made from cacao beans that grow in tropical places like West Africa. The countries in West Africa supply more than 70 percent of the world’s cocoa. They sell the cocoa they grow and harvest to many of the chocolate companies who make our chocolate candy bars. In recent years, news reporters, as well as human rights organizations around the world, have discovered that there is widespread child slavery for growing and harvesting cocoa beans on cocoa farms in West Africa. As chocolate has gotten more popular around the world, so has the demand for cheap cocoa. Many cocoa farmers earn less than $2 per day. To help keep the cost of cocoa low, they use children as workers. The children living in West Africa are very poor. Some of these children go to work on cocoa farms because their desperately poor families need them to earn money. Other children are taken against their will from small villages and sold to cocoa farm owners. These children work 80 to 100 hours a week. They are not paid. They do not go to school. They are often beaten if they try to escape. Most of these children are between the ages of 11 and 16, but some people have seen
Get Access
Related
Get Access