My siblings and I enjoying chocolate that was, sadly, created through a process of child labor (Courtesy of Michelle Yousuf).

Last summer, before I boarded my flight from (London) Heathrow to O’Hare, I wanted to stock up on all the British snacks from the Duty Free store. While grabbing multiple stacks of Cadbury chocolate, something caught my eye: The packaging said that the cocoa was 100% sustainably sourced. 

Thinking this meant that Cadbury, unlike other chocolate companies I knew to be problematic, conducted ethical chocolate production, I proceeded to purchase two more bars. However, I couldn’t have been more led on. 

While I possessed basic knowledge of the child labor and deforestation involved in the problematic chocolate industry, I was merely another consumer uneducated about the severity of the industry until my mom came home the other day with Easter candy. 

We had a conversation about how I prefer Cadbury to Hershey’s, and how we should support it as they are “more ethical,” but when I realized I couldn’t justify that statement with factual evidence, it only took me a five-second Google search to realize how wrong I was. 

Through internationally recognized standards such as Fairtrade, The German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO) defines sustainable cocoa to be cocoa “produced according to economic, environmental and social requirements.” 

Interestingly, as of 2016, Cadbury is no longer part of Fairtrade, which is a red flag itself; not being in Fairtrade reduces the restrictions on companies regarding the chocolate manufacturing process.  

However, according to The Guardian, another “interesting” fact is that, allegedly, children as young as ten have been working in Ghana, harvesting cocoa pods to supply Mondelēz International, the company that owns Cadbury. 

If this doesn’t already horrify you, according to another article by The Guardian, “43% of children living in cocoa-growing areas in Ghana and Ivory Coast were engaged in hazardous child labour, amounting to about 1.56 million children.”

Although under Ghanaian law it is supposedly illegal for children younger than 13 to work on cocoa farms, and that a ban on anyone under 18 doing hazardous labor exists, it clearly isn’t enforced as the chocolate industry continues to thrive off of child labor. 

Why should you care?

Easter is the second biggest candy holiday, and, according to FinanceBuzz, $2.6 billion is spent on Easter candy in the US alone and approximately 90 million chocolate bunnies are sold every year in the US. 

With Easter quickly approaching, and celebrations beginning, I implore you to think about what eating even one piece of chocolate means. While not supporting Cadbury may seem futile because the company has acquired so much wealth and influence within the chocolate industry, there are simple ways we can avoid contributing to the problem, such as being conscious about the chocolate we consume, getting curious about companies that are exploitation-free (for example Tony’s Chocoloney), and raising awareness.