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Slavery in the Chocolate Industry

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Slavery in the Chocolate Factory

1. What are the systemic, corporate, and individual ethical issues raised by this case?
First of all, this article was interesting to read because it pertains to ethical issues on several levels as we can see throughout and I personally never knew about slavery in the chocolate industry. From a systemic approach, ethical issues arise from the producer or farmers of the cocoa beans to the manufacturer of chocolate and ultimately the end consumer of the goods. As the media and formal documentaries have pointed out, the reason for child slavery in this industry is because farmers need to keep their costs down in order to meet the demand of the world’s chocolate consumption. This world consumption is the driving force that continues to sustain child slavery in areas like the Ivory Coast. We can see that some governmental action has tried to disrupt the systemic ethical issues that arise, but the problem continues today because the corporate level has a lot of political weight that adds to the problem.
The corporate figures of our world including Hersey Foods Corp. and M&M Mars, Inc. continue to add to the problem of child slavery in the Ivory Coast. With self-interests in mind, these chocolate producing powerhouses unethically know that they are toying with legislation to give Americans the impression that they are actually attempting to solve the issues at hand. We can see from their lack of effort and extended deadlines to complete their task, these companies simply care more about the profit and less about human rights. All of this boils down to the decisions that all of us have to make as individuals. Will we continue to buy “tainted” chocolate knowing that there’s a percentage of that produced by children in slavery? As individuals, we must ethically choose to continue buying chocolate from these large name brand companies or find those that pledge to monitor their processes ensuring that all human rights are abided by. 2. In your view, is the kind of child slavery discussed in this case absolutely wrong no matter what, or is it only relatively wrong, i.e., if one happens to live in a society (like ours) that disapproves of child slavery? Explain your view and why you hold it.
Child slavery in the minds of Americans may be absolutely wrong no matter what, but this situation really lends itself to relatively wrong in the eyes of the culture surrounding the slavery. As an American, I believe that child slavery is wrong because it goes against the basic human rights that we all should be entitled to from freedom of occupational choice and getting paid for doing a noble job. Brutally beating children and making them work hard for nothing is absolutely wrong in my mind, but apparently this isn’t so to those in the Ivory Coast. The culture of these African regions must socially accept child slavery to some degree despite their illegal rulings on the sort, but the farmers and operators utilize this source of free human labor to meet the demands of cocoa bean harvests. I may believe that child slavery is wrong no matter what, but others around the country may hold other opinions. 3. Who shares in the moral responsibility for the slavery occurring in the chocolate industry?
In short, everyone in and around the chocolate industry including those who consume chocolate derived from these child slaves holds moral responsibility. It’s often hard to look at slavery in Ivory Coast as a problem of those living in America, but do we not have a responsibly to ensure the human rights of all people no matter where they live? Should it not be mandated that corporations dealing in this industry be labeled so that we as consumers know that no one is being harmed for our chocolate craving pleasure? We all have a part in shedding light on child slavery in the Ivory Coast and more action needs to be taken to stop this slavery today. Overall, I’m glad we were able to research this topic for our case study because it applies wonderfully with the content that we are covering in class and it allows us to put that content into real-world examples.

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