Reference no: EM133100304

Prepare a written case analysis by reflecting on this topic.

• What are the systematic, corporate, and individual ethical issues raised by this case?
• In your review, is the kind of child slavery discussed in this case absolutely wrong, ie., if one happens to live in a society (like ours) that disapproves of child slavery? Explain your view and why you hold it.
• Who shares in the moral responsibility for the slavery occurring in the chocolate industry? Consider the bill that Representative Engle and Senator Harkin attempted to enact into a law, but which never became a law because of the lobbying efforts of the chocolate companies.
• What does this incident show about the view that "to be ethical it is enough for businesspeople to follow the law"?

In 2012, CNN published a sequence of investigations as part of its "Freedom Project," which located that "little one hard work, trafficking and slavery are rife" withinside the chocolate enterprise. The CNN investigations located that huge numbers of kids have been being held as slaves on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, a small kingdom at the western coast of Africa. Forty-five percentage of the chocolate we eat within the United States and withinside the relaxation of the area is made from cocoa beans grown and harvested on farms in Ivory Coast. Few apprehend that a part of Ivory Coast cocoa beans that is going into maximum of the chocolate we eat modified into grown and harvested through the usage of youngsters who paintings as slaves. The slaves are boys among 12 and 16-however from time to time as more youthful as nine-abducted from villages in surrounding worldwide places and bought to the cocoa farmers through the usage of traffickers. 

The farmers whip, beat, and starve the guys to pressure them to do the hot, hard paintings of clearing the fields, harvesting the beans, and drying them within the sun. The boy's paintings from dawn to sundown. Some are locked in at nighttime time in windowless rooms wherein they sleep on naked wood planks. Far from home, unsure in their region, not able to speak the language, remoted in rural areas, and threatened with harsh beatings if they're trying to get away, the men not often strive to interrupt out their nightmare situation. Those who try are commonly stuck, significantly beaten for example to others, and then locked in solitary confinement. Every 12 months unknown numbers of these boys die or are killed at the cocoa farms that supply our chocolate The plight of the enslaved kids modified into first appreciably publicized at the flip of the twenty-first century whilst True Vision, a British tv organization, took movies of slave boys walking on Ivory Coast farms and made a documentary depicting the sufferings of the boys. In September 2000, the documentary modified into broadcast in Great Britain, the US, and different elements of the area. 

The U.S. State Department, in its Year 2001 Human Rights Report, expected that approximately 15,000 kids from the neighboring international locations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Togo have been bought into slavery to hard work on Ivory Coast cocoa farms. Although slavery is unlawful in lvory Coast and the minimum age of employment is 14, the legal guidelines are poorly enforced. Open borders, a scarcity of enforcement officers, massive poverty, and the willingness of neighborhood officers to simply accept bribes from people trafficking in slaves all make contributions to the trouble. In addition, prices for cocoa beans in global markets have been depressed most years due to the fact 1996. As charges declined, the already impoverished cocoa farmers-who earn much less than $2 according to day on average-grew to become to slavery to lessen their hard work prices. Although charges began out out to beautify at a few level withinside the early years of the twenty-first century, cocoa expenses fell once more in 2004 and remained low till the summer season of 2010, when they once more commenced to rise. The poverty that inspired many Ivory Coast cocoa farmers to shop for youngsters trafficked as slaves changed into annoyed thru different factors besides low cocoa expenses. Working on small remoted farms of 1 to a few acres, cocoa farmers can not speak amongst themselves nor with the out of doors worldwide to investigate what cocoa is promoting for. Consequently, they may be at the mercy of a close-by intermediary, a "traitant" or "pisteur," who drives out to the farms, buys the farmers' cocoa for 1/2 of of its modern-day marketplace charge, and hauls it away in his truck. Unable to give you the cash for vans themselves, the farmers must rely upon the middlemen to get their cocoa to market. The traitant takes the cocoa beans to a warehouse in a close-by big town in which they'll be blended with the beans harvested on distinct farms, and wherein the most important exporters, which includes Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill, buy the cocoa beans to export to their processing flora. Chocolate is a $13 billion business enterprise withinside the United States, in which Americans eat over 3 billion kilos every twelve months. 

The names of the 4 largest U.S. Chocolate manufacturers-all of whom use the morally "tainted" cocoa beans from Ivory Coast in their merchandise-are properly known: Hershey Foods Corp. (maker of Hershey's milk chocolate, Reeses, and Almond Joy), Mars, Inc. (maker of M&Ms, Mars, Twix, Dove, and Milky Ways), Nestlé USA, (maker of Nestlé Crunch, Kit Kat, Baby Ruth, and Butterfingers), and Kraft Foods (which additionally makes use of chocolate in its baking and breakfast products). Less broadly recognized, however a key part of the business enterprise, are the names of ADM Co., Barry Callebaut, and Cargill Inc., all of whom characteristic middlemen who buy the cocoa beans from Ivory Coast, grind and technique them, and then sell the processed cocoa to the chocolate manufacturers. Cocoa Production in Ivory Coast Forty-five percentage of the chocolate on the world market in recent times is made from cocoa beans grown in Ivory Coast. A issue of these cocoa beans have become grown and harvested through the usage of kids who paintings as slaves. A farmer works with cocoa beans at a farm in southwest Ivory Coast. Cocoa, the primary component of chocolate, is a tremendously worthwhile crop in West Africa. Ivory Coast leads the area in production and export of the cocoa beans, imparting 33 percent of cocoa produced in the worldwide. The participants of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and the World Cocoa Foundation, stuck in the highlight of media interest, brought on October 1, 2001, that they intended to put in vicinity a device that would dispose of "the worst types of infant hard work," which incorporates slavery. In spring 2002, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and the World Cocoa Foundation in addition to the essential chocolate manufacturers-Hershey's, M&M Mars, Nestlé, and World's Finest Chocolate-and the essential cocoa processors-Blommer Chocolate, Guittard Chocolate, Barry Callebaut, and ADM-all signed an settlement to set up a gadget of certification that might affirm and certify that the cocoa beans they used had been not produced with the useful resource of using little one slaves. Known due to the fact the "Harkin-Engel Protocol," the settlement moreover said the chocolate agencies should fund schooling programs for cocoa bean farmers to teach them about growing techniques, even as explaining the importance of avoiding the use of slave difficult paintings. The members of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association additionally agreed to "take a look at out" conditions on the cocoa farms and set up an worldwide foundation" that would "oversee and keep efforts" to dispose of little one slavery on cocoa farms. In July 2002, the number one survey subsidized with the useful resource of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association concluded that a few 200,000 kids-not they all slaves-had been running in risky conditions on cocoa farms and that maximum of them did not attend university Unfortunately, in 2002, Ivory Coast have become embroiled in a civil strugglefare that continued until an uneasy peace have become installation in 2005 and finalized in 2007. Rebel forces, but persisted to govern the northern half of of the country. Reports claimed that an entire lot of the cash funding the violence of every the government and revolt organizations in some unspecified time in the future of those years got here from profits of cocoa, and that clients of "blood chocolate" from Ivory Coast had been assisting this violence Far from Achieving Goals The 2005 last date the critical chocolate corporations and their institutions had set got here and handed without the promised mounted order of a certification gadget to make certain cocoa beans had been now no longer being produced by slave kids. At this point, the chocolate agencies amended the protocol to provide themselves more time by extending their very personal closing date to July 2008, pronouncing that the certification way had grown to become out to be harder than they notion it may, especially with the outbreak of a civil struggle fare. Although the organizations did now no longer installation a certification machine on the identical time because the civil strugglefare raged, they did control to comfy enough cocoa beans to preserve their chocolate factories going at entire tempo at a few level withinside the struggle fare By early 2008, the agencies had nevertheless now no longer began out out paintings on putting in place a certification device or each different approach of making sure that slave hard work modified into now no longer used to provide the cocoa beans they used. On February 15, 2008, Fortune mag suggested that little one slavery in Ivory Coast changed into though a persevering with trouble and that the chocolate agencies had been doing truely now no longer whatever to get rid of it. The agencies issued a brand new statement wherein they extended to 2010 their closing date for complying with their promise to set up a certification machine. 

According to the corporations, they have been making an investment severa million bucks a year proper right into a basis that grow to be running on the hassle of toddler hard work. However, the investigative reporter who wrote the 2008 Fortune article said that the muse had most effective one frame of people member running in Ivory Coast. Moreover, the sports activities of that lone group of workers member had been constrained to giving "sensitization" workshops to close by people, for the duration of which he should deliver an reason behind that little one hard work is a lousy thing. The foundation have become additionally assisting a shelter that supplied housing and education to homeless street kids. The Fortune reporter observed no proof that some thing modified into being completed to growth the promised certification device. By now monitoring and certification structures had been superior and have been being used on sincere change and natural cocoa farms in distinct additives of the world. Although a number of those systems have been functioning for severa years, the chocolate agencies who sourced their cocoa from Ivory Coast regarded not able or uninterested in studying from their instance On September 30, 2010, the Payson Center at Tulane University issued a document on the development which have been made on the certification device the chocolate business enterprise had promised to set up, in addition to on the improvement the enterprise had made concerning its promise to place off "the worst forms of infant hard work" from Ivory Coast cocoa farms. The document has become commissioned via the U.S. Department of Labor, that have been asked by Congress to assess development on the "Harkin-Engel Protocol," and which gave Tulane University an initial grant of $4. Three million in 2006 and an additional $1.2 million in 2009 to accumulate the report. According to the document, "Industry stays far from reaching its intention to have a sector-huge independently established certification technique absolutely in region thru the prevent of 2010." The report discovered that among 2002-the date of the authentic settlement-and September 2010, the business enterprise had controlled to the touch fine about 90 five (2. Three percentage) of Ivory Coast's cocoa farming agencies, and that to finish its "remediation efforts," it might contact an additional 3,655 farm communities. While the Tulane organization showed that forced toddler hard work become being used at the cocoa farms, it additionally observed that no business enterprise efforts to "remediate" the usage of pressured hard work "are in place." Two video documentaries-The Dark Side of Chocolate and Chocolate: The Bitter Truth-said on the persevering with use of enslaved kids on Ivory Coast farms in 2010. Representatives of the chocolate corporations interviewed in the films denied the trouble or claimed they did not realise whatever approximately it. By the center of 2010, it have become clean that the agencies may once more fail to fulfill their cut-off date. 

So, on September 13, 2010, they signed however a few different agreements promising now to lessen "the worst forms of little one hard work in the cocoa sectors of Cote d'lvoire [lvory Coast] and Ghana...Through 70 percent in combination" by the twelve months 2020. This time, they agreed to paintings with the U.S. Department of Labor, Senator Harkin's Office, and the Government of Ghana to gain this purpose The hassle of certification remained unresolved as 2011 commenced. The manufacturers and vendors looking for Ivory Coast cocoa beans appeared not able to discover a way to "certify" that slavery changed into not used to achieve the cocoa beans they bought. Representatives of the chocolate corporations argued that the hassle of certification changed into difficult due to the fact there are more than 600,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, most of them small circle of relatives' farms located in a long way flung rural areas which may be hard to gain and that lack accurate roads and distinct infrastructure. Critics, however, mentioned that those issues did not appear to pose any limitations to obtaining cocoa beans from those identical farms. In February 2011, combating among the rebels withinside the north and the Ivory Coast government within the south broke out once more for a fast duration in a dispute over who grow to be the valid winner of the 2010 presidential election. The fighting brought about April 2011, even as one of the applicants in the end conceded the election, permitting the other candidate, Alassane Ouattara, to be declared the valid president. The combating but furnished the chocolate corporations with each different purpose for being not able to place into impact a certification gadget. Mixed Responses Although the business enterprise nevertheless appeared to be dragging its toes, a few agencies had commenced to growth their very personal responses to the selection for a certification gadget. Hershey for example, brought in 2012 that it had asked the Rainforest Alliance (an NGO targeted in New York with workplaces spherical the world) to place into impact a certification machine for its Dagoba and Bliss strains of chocolate products. In 2013 Hershey introduced that via 2020 its whole cocoa deliver may come from licensed farms, and in 2014 it suggested that 18% of its cocoa supply changed into licensed through manner of the Rainforest Alliance or distinct NGOs. Nestlé brought that through manner of 2014 the cocoa applied in its Kit Kat sweet might be licensed by UTZ Certified (an NGO centered in Amsterdam that offers traceability offerings for palm oil, tea, and cocoa). Kraft/Cadbury introduced that, like Hershey, it become running to have the Rainforest Alliance certify its cocoa. With the brand-new presidency of Alassane Ouattara, the government of Ivory Coast moreover began out to try to address the hassle of little one slavery and toddler difficult paintings. In 2012, the authorities released a "National Action Plan Against Trafficking, Exploitation, and Child Labor" and created a Joint Ministerial Committee for "the Fight in competition to Trafficking, Exploitation, and Child Labor." But the Committee lacked resources. Only 25 authorities hard work inspectors labored on little one hard work, and standard finances budgeted to combat toddler hard work had been handiest the equal of US$588,566. Because of the shortage of price range and cars, no difficult paintings inspections have been achieved within the agricultural sector. The countrywide police of the Ministry of Justice become charged with implementing criminal legal guidelines in competition to toddler trafficking and pressured infant difficult paintings, but in 2012 most effective five police officers had been assigned to the anti-trafficking unit, and that they needed to proportion one automobile and only investigated seven instances that year; five more officers have been employed in 2013.