As you curl up with your favourite blanket and beloved grandson on your cosy sofa with his bed time story book you bite into a piece of chocolate truffle. You become absentminded. You give him a piece and he falls asleep. He must be tired with his music lessons swimming lessons and gym classes. After all he is only two years and he is crazy for chocolates. The sinister dark side of chocolates attack you in full blast. You have been thinking about the activist groups in downtown Toronto who were protesting to Nestle and other chocolate companies in Canada who were importing cocoa from Ghana and Ivory Coast. Many innocent children young adults even seniors conveniently overlook the tragic history and blood and sweat sacrificed for these tasty delights coveted by people all over the world. Sadly Chocolate Day is also celebrated all over this world. Though there is an enveloping darkness there which makes you grasp for breath. And riches pile up higher and higher. Are you not ever conscious-stricken as you gaze at your grandson curled up with you and at the brown chocolate marks on your loved ones' lips? Close your eyes block your ears and move backwards...
Seventy percent of the world's cocoa is produced in West Africa.
One point eight million African children lose their childhood to put these chocolates on our plate. We present our loved ones with these chocolates as an expression of our love. Black people black earth and black chocolates. Everyday countless children are smuggled in here from neighbouring cities and countries to the cocoa farms in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Some are kidnapped from schools and some are lured with money and work. Their inhuman labour is used from six in the morning till nine in the evening everyday. Their daily ration consists of cheap boiled com and bananas. They sleep like animals in human stables without doors or windows. Sometimes these children are shackled in chains when chances are that they will flee away. The ones who are caught escaping are inhumanly tortured.
Unspeakable is that persecution. They are profusely beaten up and not given food and young girls are incessantly raped. If they die from this or from being beaten they are fed to the dogs or their bodies are thrown in the river. International Labour Law does not work here?
All around is blood despair abuse and cruelty. The blood is turning darker and darker as in the chocolates all over the world...
The renowned chocolate companies of the world buy cocoa from here. To keep the prices low child labour is required. Children aged between five to twelve do not receive wages. They only receive food. And that is not given adequately. Because of their size and age these little children can enter the dense and small spaces of cocoa gardens. The poisonous insects snakes and worms sometimes kill the children. But that does not matter to their owners. As long as these children are immersed in poverty their trade will go on. The giant chocolate companies know all about these wrong doings but for the greed of getting cocoa at a cheaper price they remain silent. Forty percent are girls amongst these child labourers in the cocoa farms. They grow up here. They cannot meet their families in their lifetime. The roads are open for coming but dangerous for leaving. Not only perilous but almost impossible. These young girls work inhumanly the whole day and meet the sexual demands of the owners, supervisors and other workers at night. Many become pregnant at the age of eleven or twelve. Sexual diseases are rampant. Many lose their innocent childhood in these cocoa farms. The sharp long knives that they use to get the cocoas out often chops off their fingers or Inflict deep wounds. Ten year old children are carrying forty pounds sacks on their backs and if they are unable or slow or take rest they are profusely caned...
Who says in this time and age slavery has been abolished? Look at the chocolate boxes in shiny gift wrappings and think again...
(Rummana Chowdhury is the author of forty four books comprising of poetry, columns, eassays, short stories and novels.)