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Fair Trade Activists Protest M&M/Mars' Use of Child Labor

Fair Trade activists have demanded that M&M/Mars start selling Fair Trade chocolate to help end child labor in West Africa. If M&M/Mars goes Fair Trade it will give West African cocoa farmers a living wage, while guaranteeing that the industry will not profit from child labor," said Valerie Orth, Global Exchange's Fair Trade organizer. "M&M/Mars will be a great example for the rest of the cocoa industry."

M&M/Mars is being targeted because the company's chocolate products have a very unpleasant ingredient: Child labor. Milky Way, Dove Bar and M&Ms are tainted by the tears and sweat of West African children. Two thirds of the world's cocoa crop is produced on West African cocoa farms, where the U.S. State Department and the International Labor Organization have recently documented the widespread use of child labor, and even child slavery. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture reports that West African cocoa farmers earn, on average, as little as $30 to $108 per household member annually from cocoa. Yet M&M/Mars still purchases no Fair Trade cocoa despite growing consumer demand for Fair Trade chocolate over the past two years.

Fair Trade certified chocolate, which provides a living wage to the farmers, is a solution to the child labor situation. Fair Trade certification guarantees a minimum price per pound, prohibits abusive labor and offers the hope of economic success to cocoa farmers. But M&M/Mars flatly refuses to sell Fair Trade chocolate, this despite sales of about $16 billion per year.

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