Halloween and Human Trafficking

With Halloween quickly approaching, October is a particularly opportune month to raise awareness about the use of forced labor, child labor, and other exploitative labor practices in the chocolate industry. A number of organizations are hosting campaigns to help community members raise awareness about these issues and to encourage the chocolate industry to continue to address these abuses in the industry.

The Dark Side of Chocolate
The International Labor Rights Forum, along with Global Exchange, Green America and Oasis USA, are organizing screenings of The Dark Side of Chocolate all across the country. This new documentary exposes the ongoing use of child labor, forced labor and trafficking in the cocoa industry in West Africa. It is a great resources for increasing awareness of this critical labor rights issue.

As part of the Raise the Bar Hershey campaign, they are asking concerned individuals to host screenings in their communities throughout October 2010, especially during a national week of action from October 25 through October 31.

For more information, please contact Tim Newman at Tim.Newman@ILRF.org or 202-347-4100
To watch the trailer, click Here
To download a community screening toolkit, click Here

Reverse Trick-or-Treating
Ten to twenty thousand groups of children will hand chocolate back to adults during their regular neighborhood trick-or-treating rounds this Halloween. The children will distribute Fair Trade certified chocolate attached to a card explaining the labor and environmental problems in the cocoa industry globally and how Fair Trade provides a solution. The event, Reverse Trick-or-Treating, was launched to raise awareness of the pervasive problem of child labor, forced labor and trafficking in the cocoa fields, to empower consumers to press the chocolate industry for more fair cocoa sourcing policies, to shift the industry toward sourcing Fair Trade certified cocoa, and to inform consumers about Fair Trade companies that are leading the way to industry reform. Fair Trade standards prohibit the use of abusive child labor, contain extensive environmental sustainability protections, and enable farmers to escape poverty.

To learn more, click Here
To order a kit, click Here