June 17: The date that will live in irony (op-ed)

 

On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden commemorated the end of slavery in the United States by signing a bill that made Juneteenth a federal holiday. Ironically, on the same day, the United States Supreme Court decided 8 to 1 against six African plaintiffs in Nestle USA v. Doe, a child slave labor lawsuit.

This case was originally filed in 2005 and was dismissed in 2010 by a California federal judge. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and after a decade and a half the case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The lawsuit targeted the U.S. subsidiary of Swiss-based Nestle, a multinational food and beverage conglomerate, and U.S. commodities trading giant Cargill.

The plaintiffs, citizens of Mali, claimed they were snatched from their homeland, trafficked to the neighboring Ivory Coast, and forced to work on cocoa farms. The plaintiffs accused Nestle and Cargill of aiding and abetting human rights violations through their “active involvement in purchasing” cocoa from the Ivory Coast. The lawsuit stated these companies turned a blind eye to the use of slave labor in order to keep cocoa prices low.

The defendants argued 1). The West African governments bear the responsibility to prevent child slave labor within their borders. 2). The culprits that injured the plaintiffs were the Malian child traffickers and the cocoa plantation overseers in the Ivory Coast. 3). The 15-year-old lawsuit was brought against the wrong defendants in the wrong country.

Eight of the Supreme Court justices agreed with the defendants.

However, in 2001 the U.S. Congress introduced legislation to create a federal labeling system that would inform consumers whether or not certain products were produced with the aid of child laborers. According to - Corporate Accountability - a non-profit organization, “The chocolate industry helped defeat that legislation. Adamant that it didn’t need regulation, the industry agreed to voluntary commitments to eradicate child labor from its supply chains by 2005.”

(Notice the lawsuit against Nestle and Cargill was filed the same year the chocolate industry pledged to have child labor eradicated from its supply chains.)

The chocolate industry failed to meet its 2005 goal and scaled back its ambition from eradicating child labor from its supply chain to a 70-percent reduction. The chocolate industry failed to meet their new goal in 2008 and 2010. According to the Washington Post, each time the chocolate industry has pledged to do better, incidents of child labor increased in West African cocoa production.

Timothy S. McCoy, a vice president of the World Cocoa Foundation, stated when the industry pledged to eradicate child labor in 2001, “the real magnitude of child labor in the cocoa supply chains and how to address the phenomenon were poorly understood.” McCoy added the industry has made “major strides” by building schools, supporting agricultural cooperatives, and advising farmers on better production methods.

Unfortunately, a decade and half after the chocolate industry decided to reduce child labor by 70 percent, many companies still cannot identify the farms where their cocoa originated, which means they don’t know if it was produced by child slave labor. The Washington Post reported, “Mars, makers of M&M’s and Milky Way, can trace only 24 percent of its cocoa back to farms; Hershey, the maker of Kisses and Reese’s, less than half; Nestle can trace 49 percent of its global cocoa supply to farms.” The Washington Post also stated there is plenty of evidence that the world’s chocolate supply depends on child labor.

But evidence of dependence and proof of aiding and abetting are two different things. Human rights advocates insist that the persistence of child labor in the world’s cocoa supply amounts to tragic negligence.

The chocolate industry is liable for its negligence. 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito dissented because he believed the plaintiffs should be allowed to amend their complaint.

Hopefully, the next group of ex-child slave laborers will make a stronger case against the chocolate industry, but until then, June 17, 2001 will remain an infamous date for child slave laborers on West African cocoa plantations, and the irony will be completely forgotten during American Juneteenth celebrations.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 6/30/21