Is chocolate a part of your everyday lifestyle? A melt in your mouth,  creamy treat  to have on any day. Ether M&M’s,  or a Hershey’s bar. Have you ever wondered what ingredients or how they make it. One word Slavery.Everyone might have thought that slavery was done for when they made a claim to make it illegal to have slaves. But what really happened was the slave rate died down. Slavery is still being used in cacao plantations today for the production of chocolate.

People have been taken from their homes without a hope of going home. According to William A. Cadbury’s  letter ” The large majority of Angola natives who are taken to S. Thomé are brought to the coast and shipped to the islands against their will, and therefore when they allow themselves to be contracted, it is under the force of circumstances and not a voluntary act.”. They are hopeless. No one may return from being taken. It needs to be stopped.

Not only are people being taken from their homes, they live in horrible living conditions. According to William A. Cadbury’s letter” “Doctors state that most of the mortality is from two diseases—anemia and dysentery; complaints that are easily developed by people in a depressed mental condition. It is also admitted that the highest death-rate is among the newly arrived laborers, and this is exactly what one would expect when we know that these people are forcibly taken from their homes for work across the sea, without any hope of return.”. This can affect the human race. People are dying.  They need to be stopped. People are not okay.

But what are their ages? Kids as little as four are slaves to. Not only adults.According to Deborah Dunn “Most Americans eat about twelve pounds of it each year! But many people don’t know that children in West Africa pick most of the world’s cocoa beans, which is the main ingredient in chocolate. Cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast make about half of the chocolate eaten in America in one year. Child labor is becoming of increasing concern to people who buy chocolate. Slavery has been going on for years with chocolate, but why?

Who are they? Why are they doing this? Big companies like Hersheys, M&M, and Mars, and all for the money.  According to the website, www.foodispower.org  “Western African countries, mostly Ghana and the Ivory Coast, supply more than 70% of the world’s cocoa. The cocoa they grow and harvest is sold to a majority of chocolate companies, including the largest in the world. As the chocolate industry has grown over the years, so has the demand for cheap cocoa.”. They only pay as little as a penny for pounds, and pounds of cacao beans (cocoa) to sell it  for lots of money. This is insanity. Children don’t go to school to work in their families farms so they can afford their houses.

Slaves are one thing that is still going on that is a threat to the human race. So next time you buy chocolate,  the slaves a favor, buy fair trade labeled chocolate. Fair trade is a program where you have to pay a fair amount of money for their product. It might be a bit more expensive, but it will help.

• KATELYNN

It might be long but it is all the truth.