Slave Labour - the Hidden Cost of Chocolate

That the Parliament condemns outright the use of slave labour in the manufacture of chocolate; notes that slave traders are currently trafficking young boys aged between 12 and 16 and selling them to cocoa farmers in the Côte d’Ivoire; further notes that there are around 600,000 cocoa farms in the Côte d’Ivoire and that it is estimated that the number of children forced to work as slaves on these farms may be as high as 15,000; recognises that, in addition to this illegal trafficking, the implicated cocoa farmers subject the children to inhumane living conditions and, besides overworking them, do not feed the children properly and frequently beat them to make them work harder or if they try to escape; calls on the Scottish Executive to do everything it can to put a stop to the modern slave trade by putting pressure at the highest level on all international chocolate companies, agencies and governments, and calls on the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body to ensure that all chocolate used and sold within the Parliament has not been produced using slave labour.