August 24, 2009

On Halloween night, children and youths across the United States and Canada will unite to turn the evening’s festivities upside down by giving fair-trade chocolate to adults while trick-or-treating door-to-door in their communities. The fair-trade chocolate is attached to a card with information about social and environmental justice issues in the cocoa industry and how buying fair-trade certified chocolate provides a solution.

The effort is called “Reverse Trick-or-Treating,” and the kits to participate are free. Fair-trade chocolate companies Equal Exchange, Alter Eco, Sweet Earth, and La Siembra and others in Canada are providing the kits. Participants pay the cost of postage only.

Last year approximately 225,000 houses received the reverse trick or treat. This year’s goal is to reach more than 250,000 homes to raise public awareness about Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate. The certification requires farmers to abide by international labor laws that prohibit illegal child labor while also ensuring that farmers receive a fair, stable price for their cocoa, and that environmentally sustainable farming practices are applied.

Millions of children ages 5-17 are still toiling in cocoa production in West Africa, according to a study released by the U.S. Dept. of Labor last October. The report said children are still being trafficked into the cocoa fields to work, often without any remuneration, and suffer regular beating once they arrive.

The report's larger survey on the cocoa growing regions of Cote D' Ivoire and Ghana is equally disturbing. Nearly 75% of children working in cocoa in Ghana reported sustaining an injury, such as wounds and cuts or back pain, due to agricultural work. Work in cocoa is hazardous for children, who are required to carry heavy loads and use machetes. Only 50.9% of child cocoa laborers in Cote D' Ivoire had attended school in the 12 months preceding the survey.

Harkin-Engel Protocol

In July last year, the chocolate industry again failed to meet a self-imposed deadline under the conditions of the 2001 Harkin-Engel Protocol, a voluntary industry initiative that calls for an end to abusive child labor in the cocoa industry. Dozens of national nonprofit organizations and chocolate companies have united to call on the cocoa industry for reform. The statement released by 47 organizations and fair-trade companies around the world is "Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing: Abolishing Unfair Labor Practices and Addressing Their Root Causes."

Distribution of Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate … is intended to demonstrate three points.

The distribution of Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate along with the informational card is intended to demonstrate three points:

1. At least one tool already exists for major cocoa and chocolate companies to adopt to fight poverty in cocoa-growing communities;
2. Raise the profile of the chocolate made available by companies who have committed to using only Fair Trade Certified™ cocoa; and
3. Put public pressure on large chocolate companies to follow suit.

The Reverse Trick-or-Treating campaign is an initiative of the human rights advocacy group Global Exchange.

You can participate in Reverse Trick-or-Treating as an individual or organize your classroom, school, congregation, youth group or social-justice organization to participate. Kits are free. Deadlines to order kits are Oct. 13 for groups, and Oct. 1 for individuals.

For more information, go to Reverse Trick or Treating.

Even if you prefer not to request a kit including chocolate, you are encouraged to participate in the program by distributing flyers on Halloween.

If you are looking for fair-trade Halloween candy to distribute to kids at your door, go to Global Exchange Store.

Equal Exchange is a full-service provider of quality, organic coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate and healthy snacks to grocery stores, restaurants and places of worship nationwide. All Equal Exchange products are fairly traded, benefiting more than 30 small farmer cooperatives in 16 countries around the world.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief and General Board of Church & Society are among lead nonprofit organizations that endorse Reverse Trick or Treating. Others include: