Story by Sarah Walters
Photos provided by The Dark Side of Chocolate
The student group Slavery Still Exists and the filmmakers of the documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate want consumers to know where their chocolate comes from. In honor of the upcoming sweet-centered holiday Valentine’s Day, Slavery Still Exists screened the film Wednesday night with fair trade chocolate and coffee.
In the investigative documentary filmmakers Miki Mistrati and U. Roberto Romano use undercover cameras and interviews to reveal the truly dark side of the chocolate industry. The film, released in 2010, is less than an hour long, but those fifty minutes are filled with very compelling and emotional scenes. Footage from undercover cameras and interviews with people in the government, the chocolate industry, and the child slaves behind much of the market reveal the hidden truth that chocolate manufacturers Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland Mars, Hershey’s, Nestle, Barry Callebaut, Saf-Cacao, and others seem to ignore or even deny (none of the companies agreed to be interviewed for the film).
The Dark Side of Chocolate begins at a chocolate convention in Cologne, Germany, and then travels all over the world, from Mali to the Ivory Coast and then up to Geneva, Switzerland, mirroring the global process of chocolate production.
Chocolate is created from cocoa beans, which are mainly grown on plantations in Africa. Growing and cultivating cocoa beans is a laborious process, requiring the use of machetes. Male and female children ages ten to fifteen are smuggled across the border of Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries, into the Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa bean producer. These trafficked children are bused from their villages to work without pay on cocoa bean plantations.
One of the most haunting scenes in the documentary was filmed undercover at one of these plantations. Two shirtless young boys wearing shorts and small boots hold machetes and walk nonchalantly around the cocoa bean plantation. Neither of them attended school or could speak the local language.
These children are slave laborers.
African aid workers told the filmmakers that from 2006 to 2007, about 150 children ages twelve to fifteen were trafficked from Mali to the Ivory Coast. These aid workers help rescue the children, both male and female, from being trafficked, but the problem is widespread and continuous.
In 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure to create a federal system to certify and label chocolate products as “slave free.” Chocolate manufacturers fought back, according to the documentary, but finally, in 2005, Archer Daniel Midland Mars, Barry Callebaut, and other chocolate manufacturers signed a protocol to end the use of child slave labor in the production of chocolate. However, the deadline for following the terms of the protocol has been continuously extended over the years, and in 2010, when the documentary was made, the deadline had still not been met.
The documentary ends abruptly with a scene of the filmmaker screening his videos on a giant projector placed across the street of the Nestle headquarters. People walking on the street and driving their cars in the parking lot stop and stare at the shocking footage. The line “the chocolate companies need to know about this” helps conclude the documentary, which ends on a “call to action” tone.
Members of Slavery Still Exists encourage consumers to purchase fair trade chocolate, which is produced without child labor. During the event, group members handed out fliers to help students find out if the chocolate they purchase really is fair trade.
Consumers should look for labels and logos that say “fair trade certified” or “fair trade.” Fair trade chocolate is sold at local businesses including Market of Choice and Sundance Natural Foods, as well as online through retailers like Equal Exchange and Full Circle Exchange.
The student group behind the campus screening, Slavery Still Exists has normally focused on sex trafficking, but this term have decided to broaden their interests and showcase issues of child slave labor. They received the copy of The Dark Side of Chocolate with help from the group Oregonians Against Trafficking Humans (OATH).
