Modern Sociological Theories

The Social Relations Inscribed in a Chocolate Bar
Name
Institution
The Social Relations Inscribed in a Chocolate Bar
Chocolate is a product derived from cacao bean. The cacao plant, commonly known as cocoa mainly grows in the tropical climates of Latin America, Asia, and West Africa. By region, West Africa is the biggest cocoa producer in the world, contributing 70 percent of the total product in the world’s cocoa market (Food Empowerment Project, 2014). Cocoa is grown and harvested seasonally, with the product being sold to chocolate companies across the world. In Africa, there are very few chocolate processing companies if any and thus most of the crop is sold to international firms outside the continent. The product is a direct substitute for tea and coffee. In the recent years, a number of journalists and human rights organizations have brought into the limelight the widespread child labor and in most extreme circumstances slavery, inherent in most of cocoa production firms in West Africa. As compared to other cocoa producing countries of the world, West African countries have reported the highest number of child labor cases. As a result of these revelations, cocoa industry has remained highly secretive, with journalists and human rights champions being denied the opportunity to access most of the cocoa growing areas (Cooper, 2006). It has therefore become very difficult for them to disseminate information on human rights violation to the public. In recent reports, a considerable number of journalists were arrested by the Ivory Coast authorities for compiling and publishing information on corruption inherent in the government institutions. Despite the degree of sweetness inscribed in a chocolate bar, there lies slavery, child trafficking, and child labor (Cooper, 2006).
Globally, 45 countries produce cocoa (Food Empowerment Project, 2014). Out of these countries, eight of them contribute about 85 percent of the world’s total production. The world produces 2.9 tons of cocoa per annum with the figure representing $4.5 billion dollars in sales. The eight largest cocoa producers include Malaysia, Ecuador, Cameroon, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, Ghana, and Ivory Coast. Cocoa lies in the third position, after coffee and sugar, in the market for raw materials globally (Food Empowerment Project, 2014). Among the 45 cocoa producing countries, few have established industries for processing cocoa beans into chocolate. After cocoa beans are harvested and dried, they are transported to other countries for processing. In Africa, Ivory Coast and Ghana, both in West Africa, are the largest cocoa producing countries, contributing a big percentage in the global cocoa market share. Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, contributes 39 percent of the total product in the market. Ghana is the second biggest earner, producing 18 percent of the world tonnage. Cocoa is the major source of foreign exchange for Ivory Coast and Ghana. In Ivory Coast, the crop contributes about 50 percent of the gross domestic product. In Ghana, it contributes about 43 percent. In this case, cocoa is the main source of income in these countries, absorbing 60 percent of the countries’ labor force. Cocoa is a labor-intensive crop. Straight from the time it is grown to harvest time, the crop demands human labor all through. People cross borders from the neighboring Gambia, Mali, and Equatorial Guinea to work in the farms. In that case, the demand for labor in cocoa plantations is high, with farmers going to the extent of involving child labor in the farms (Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, UN, & PWIBLF, 2008).
Cocoa is the primary export in Ivory Coast and Ghana. The rapidly growing chocolate industry has raised the demand for cheap cocoa. Farmers in the West African countries are getting too little from the crop as a result of the falling world prices. In order to keep up with the competition in the market, the farmers have resulted to the deployment of child labor. In their way, this helps to cut on production costs thus keeping the crop’s prices competitively low. Most children in West Africa have been brought up in intense poverty and thus they start working as young as 11 years to substantiate their parents’ earnings (Food Empowerment Project, 2014). In this case, most of these children end up in cocoa plantations and farms with the hope that they will receive good payment. In the recent past, cases in which children have been sold to traffickers have increased in these countries. Cartels of child traffickers abduct these children from their homes at night and sell them to farm owners. Children have also been abducted from the neighboring countries like Mali and Burkina Faso for sale in Ivory Coast. When they are delivered to the hands of cocoa farmers, children are deployed in heavily guarded firms, where in most cases they never rejoined to their families. Relatives who sell children to the farm owners normally collect their payments after an agreed duration of time. In other cases, they are paid in a lump sum for the entire employment period. Unfortunately, parents and relatives never come to realize the conditions under which their children work. They work in extremely dangerous environment having been deprived of education.
The average age for most of the children is 11 to 16 (Food Empowerment Project, 2014). However, journalists have reported cases of children, as young as eight years, working in the farms. Some of the children fall ill of being overworked while others survive the ordeal to adulthood. In the cocoa farms, children start working when the sun rises until it sets towards darkness. Throughout the day, their work involves climbing cocoa trees and cutting bean pods using knives and machetes. Machetes are normally the major tools used in cocoa farms. Due to their young age, some children cannot manage the tools are thus constantly injure themselves. After cutting the bean pods from the trees, the children are also involved in packing the pods into boxes, containers, or sacks and then dragging or carrying them from the forests to the waiting vans. Children who find their way out of the farms have reported cases of mistreatment involving beatings and other kinds of harassment. Roles previously conducted by adults are now be done by children as young as 12 (Hindman, 2009). Recently, children’s role included harvesting and transporting cocoa pods to the threshing sites. However, today, they are also involved in breaking the cocoa pods with machetes to extract the cocoa beans. Some children have severely cut off their hands and fingers in the past. Almost all children had scars in their shoulders, legs, arms, or hands (Hindman, 2009).
Besides the hard work children go through in the cocoa farms, they are also exposed to harmful agricultural chemicals normally sprayed on the cocoa plants. Normally, tropical regions are infested by insects, a case of Ivory Coast (Hindman, 2009). Farmers spray large amounts of chemicals on the growing plants and cocoa pods. Spraying duties are also delegated to children as young as 11 years. Working children are fed with the cheapest food around such as bananas and corn paste. The sleeping conditions are also bad. Most of the drinking water is highly contaminated, with some rivers found amidst cocoa farms. In this, most of the chemicals sprayed in the crop infiltrates into these rivers. Death cases from contaminated water have frequently been reported. Children working in cocoa farms never hope to break the cycle of poverty in their families. This is because it is usually practically impossible to attend school from the co...