Comments - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community by Jai-anaida

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

’Sweet Sin Chocolates’: You chose the perfect picture to start a story like this. Each time you eat a piece of those sensual chocolates you are tasting the blood of a child who pays for your chocolate with his/her childhood, innocence and probably life. What strikes me most is the last picture.. Carrying the burden of chocolate on her tiny head... It is obscene. Very disturbing indeed.

Jayashree

Jayashree — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Disturbing indeed that the chocolate we take for granted and enjoy so immensely leaves blisters on tiny hands and fragile backs, bent under the burden of carrying our ’pleasure’. I wonder how chocolate tastes so sweet, with all the African blood and tears that go into its production.

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

What could be more tragic that a child being made to process cocoa seeds under such terrible conditions and we go ahead and consume chocolates without even feeling difficulty. The ’Fair Trade’ thing you are talking about is just a hogwash. If you go to the plantations you would find hundreds of children. This article raises the issues of Child Labour, Child Trafficking, Slavery, Bonded Labour, Consumerism, Official Apathy and what else?

Jayashree

Jayashree — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Jaiyant, fair trade hasn’t been established at all the farms of Africa, and not even South American farms ensure complete fair trade. But it has started, and many more farms are joining.

Companies like Hersheys, M&Ms, Nestle, are all guilty of selling tainted chocolate but have, in the recent years, made an effort to contribute to the market of fair trade chocolate products. Joining them are other companies like Cloud Nine, Clif Bar, etc..

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’m glad they have made an attempt to practice ’Fair Trade’. If you visit one of the plantations where cocoa is produced for the companies that practice ’Fair Trade’ you would know the reality is something more sinister. Things are usually not what the appear to be and ’Fair Trade’ is definitely unfair if you probe a little. If the companies have to stay in business they have to formulate and abide by company ethics’, which usually are written with the purpose of pleasing us. The companies don’t give a damn about what actually happens in these plantations. All they need is the ’Fair Price’ tag on their glossy wrappers

Jayashree

Jayashree — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

God, I replied to your comment and my system has to get hung, probably offended by what I had to say.

Hey, when you say Fair Trade is just a cover up, you are perhaps right. After all, none of these companies cared enough to see the conditions of the farms they were buying from, and when stories of child labour surfaced, they swore it had been blown out of proportion and they were not responsible for the goings on at these farms.

Mars promised to save ’extinction’ of chocolate for the sake of all chocolate lovers, they pretend it has nothing to do with the billions of dollars they would lose. The voluntary protocol signed was intended to eliminated child labour at all cacao farms several years ago, but children still work at these farms and the same companies say it would take them five more years to ‘cleanse’ the farms.

Many farms where cacao was earlier grown, most especially in Ghana, are no longer cultivable because of soil degradation. But MNCs don’t think about those people who depend on this soil for their daily bread.

So, yes, in a way you are right. Production of fair trade chocolate by these companies is only an attempt to save face after all the negative publicity and to gain back control of the market.

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It is so easy to gather at a forum and comment our lives away.. But the statistics, as Grace always puts it, here is 300,000. That is 300,000 heart rending stories to be told. And we will never get to hear from them is another irony..

Celso Camargo

Celso Camargo — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is sad, but the reality is worse. If we check the production of all goods we consume, from food to electronics, we would be crazy, because productive sector that is totally free of any kind of abuse by producers.

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Celso, you are a sociologist.. You would understand these things better.. But have we brought all these upon ourselves? A healthy society that can sustain itself without harming another seems so unnatural now.

Sharmila Chakravorty

Sharmila Chakravorty — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I dint know there’s so much to a piece of chocolate. now i feel as if every time i bite into one, im biting into some kids flesh. :( thats reallly depressing. reality always is a biggger f**k up from what things look like. its realllly sad.

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Sad isn’t it? The child needs to be given chocolates.. Not forced to make them..

Jayashree

Jayashree — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

If I had known it would depress you so much I would never have written this! Don’t stop eating chocolates now, Sharmila, there are always other things to do to help.

Like Celso says, the production of almost every good is ’tainted’. Like the carpet industry here in India stil have slave children working for them. Even beedi, incense sticks and matchsticks are made by children who don’t get paid for their work. And we see minors working everywhere!

Now cheer up, have some chocolate..err I mean, strawberries?

Sharmila Chakravorty

Sharmila Chakravorty — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

:P yes u do have a point. maybe by me not eating chocolates these children would b jobless! all the more trouble then :-|

child labour is gross and prevalent which kinda pisses me off bigtime. but with soo much poverty around, there seems to be no other way out.

Grace Calderon

Grace Calderon — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I am absolved, hehe... I only patronize local dark chocolate. Cacao was brought by the Spaniards to the Philippines in the 16th century via Acapulco through the Galleon Trade.

The local chocolate industry here is small but thriving. No child labor and it supports hundreds of farmer families.

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Lucky you.. What we get in India is usually by Cadbury, Nestle, and other western chocolate manufacturers. We shall continue to feel guilty. Oh, by the way, you get homemade chocolates in a small hill station in the South. For which you have to spend a fortune to get there, only to buy a few ounces of chocolate

Jayashree

Jayashree — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Grace! Not fair! I wanna eat chocolate sans guilt, too...waah! :’(

Grace Calderon

Grace Calderon — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hehe, Jayashree. I can send you some but they aren’t the glossily packaged things. And because they’re dark, they have a slightly bitter aftertaste.

It was for it that I wrote this article here many moons ago.

http://gracieb.instablogs.com/entry/have-you-had-your-dark-chocolate-today/

Jayashree

Jayashree — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks Grace!

I remember reading that post of yours :)

Celso Camargo

Celso Camargo — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Grace, this is not fair! In a little you will tell us that you generate your own electricity!

Deepa

Deepa — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Jaiyant are you talking about the yum home made chocolates from Kodaicanal? I must have had them about a decade ago....but still cannot get over its flavor. Sadly, didn’t get a chance to dig in them again :(

Celso Camargo

Celso Camargo — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Jayant, health society is just a dream. We must fight for turn this dream into a reality, but I get tell ya, it will not be easy, because it should start by ourselves, reducing our consumerism. Can we do this? Less clothes, cars, electronic gadgets, food...

Jayashree

Jayashree — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Celso! Easy is boring right? And it’s things like this that make a nice dirty fight interesting, and fun. About reducing our level of consumption...we can always try..

And change always begins with ’the man in the mirror’.

Grace Calderon

Grace Calderon — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

LOL, Celso. You can be right. I’m having a windmill delivered this Friday. Hehe...

Celso Camargo

Celso Camargo — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I knew it! Are you running for president?

Jayashree, changing ourselves is the hardest thing to do!

Jayashree

Jayashree — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

And there are all those funny quotes about when the going gets tough, and, the harder the better..

It’s meaningless trying to change someone else!

Sasmita

Sasmita — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have never any idea about this sad story behind chocolates. I can not help thinking it over and again, while a chocolate in mouth. But yes! the truth behind it is pathetic, draws sympathy. Very little kids working for 12 to 14 hours a day- that’s just to lead a life of extreme poverty? Why these bloody idiot business industries take care about these child labour? They are making enough money, still not satisfied with that.

Jayashree

Jayashree — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

@Sasmita, so sorry I’m so late! Now that we all know, we can all be more careful about what we eat. The local chocos Jaiyant and Deepa are talking about do taste great. They’re available at select places in Bangalore, so I’m sure you can find them somewhere in Pune, too. Good luck hunting!

Deepa

Deepa — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I am addicted to my dose of daily chocolate.....and don’t miss it for anything or anybody. But am embarrassed to admit that i wasn’t aware of this side of chocolate industry. Gosh, now I am torn between my choco-addiction and the urge to quit these sinful goodies that are an outcome of child slavery.

Jayashree

Jayashree — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Chill, Deepa. You don’t have to give up your choco habit. Local choco is the mantra that will cleanse our souls!

By the way, don’t feel bad about never having heard of the bitter side of chocos. The MNCs tried hard to keep the news a secret..