Since 2001, chocolate consumers around the world have voiced their outrage about child labor and trafficking on cocoa farms in West Africa.  Despite millions of dollars and tons of public relations campaigns over the years, the worst forms of child labor and trafficking continue to occur in the cocoa supply chains of major US chocolate companies like Hershey, M&M/Mars and Nestle.  These chocolate companies have said they are working to address labor problems together as an industry, but their initiatives have not yielded the necessary results. 

For more information about chocolate industry intiatives and their lack of success, please see ILRF's most recent report on the cocoa industry here.

ILRF also released a 2009 chocolate company scorecard ranking some popular US chocolate companies in terms of their commitment to worker rights.

For more information, you can also check out Christian Parenti's article from Fortune magazine from last year's Valentine's Day and listen to him debate Bill Guyton of the World Cocoa Foundation on Democracy Now!