Child Addiction: The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled in favor of two companies

Mali first argued that the two companies had six complaints alleging that they had been victims of exploitation during their childhood. Benefits It was facilitated by forced child labor and their trade policies, the decision was made in the United States.

The court ruled that both companies buy equipment from farms that buy their cocoa overseas, which is not enough with the alleged irregularities that are allowed.

Now the adults, the plaintiffs recruited under false pretenses, were subjected to human trafficking, forced to work long hours on Ivorian cocoa farms, starved and locked up at night.

Nestl அமெரிக்கா America and Cargill, for their part, argued that such cases should be brought against human traffickers and the farmers involved, but not against large corporations. They also challenged the interpretation of the law sought by the plaintiffs against an argument approved by the Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs brought an action under the 1789 Act, which allowed the federal courts to investigate Any civil action brought by a foreigner for injuries is a violation of the law of the land or the treaty of the United States..

Put on the back burner until the 1980s, when the law began to be used in human rights cases. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that certain complaints could be recognized under the law, but that reduced its scope.

According to lawyers for the six plaintiffs, multinational chocolate companies need to do more research on their cocoa suppliers in West Africa, where two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is grown.

Child labor on cocoa plantations in the region is a well-known problem, as are human rights violations and low wages.

Serious issue

Despite the obligations made by the chocolate giants over the past decades, child labor is widespread in cocoa plantations, especially in West Africa.

In 2001, several key players in the industry pledged to ensure the cultivation of cocoa beans and the processing of their products by July 2005. Without any of the worst forms of child labor.

Nine years after the so-called Hurkin-Engel protocol – named after US elected officials at the beginning of the initiative – they later became a Significant reduction Now until 2020.

An extensive survey Washington Post In 2019 it announced not only the work of minors, but also the worst conditions in which they work. None of the big companies like Nestle, Mars and Hershey are saying that their suppliers can only guarantee that they work for adults.

According to 2018-2019 estimates by the University of Chicago Research Center, nearly 1.6 million children work on cocoa farms along the coast, as proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor. Ivory Coast and Ghana.

The plantations employed mostly boys (57%), but women (43%) worked an average of 8.3 hours a day, with some children as young as 5 years old. It was these ages who reduced the average number of hours worked.

The majority of these children are also used for activities that are considered dangerous, such as exposing pesticides, handling sharp tools such as machetes, carrying heavy loads, or cutting and burning crops.

These findings are consistent with the allegations in the case against Nestle America and Cargill. One of the complainants, for example, said he worked for two years without receiving a single penny and used pesticides on a regular basis without being provided with protective clothing.

Another reported frequent insect bites and deformities in the hands and arms as a result of the accident.

On its website, Nestle claims America Koko is committed to ending child labor in the industry. The company says the measures it has taken have helped support education, for example Protect 128,000 children Of this whip Unacceptable.

Kargil claims to have set up a monitoring system that has grown from 12% to 28% of its operations.

Both are partners in an international coco initiative initiated by chocolate makers to combat child labor in cocoa production in West Africa.