Chocolate’s Heart of Darkness

In 2001, the lucrative chocolate industry, due to pressure from NGOs, committed itself to putting an end to child labour in cacao plantations before 2006. 18 years later, has that promise been kept?

The Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cacao producer, made a real effort to eradicate this scourge on the country. They built schools and trained farmers. Television adverts even reminded populations that child labour is illegal. So why does child exploitation still exist?

Further into isolated areas of the forest, at the end of near-impassable roads, Paul Moreira discovered child slaves, forced to work in plantations, their incomes often seized by traffickers. These child slaves are separated from their parents and sometimes resold onto other traffickers.