The Bitter Truth About Chocolates

In an investigation into the supply chain that delivers much of the chocolate - the BBC found evidence of human trafficking and child slave labour. There is no guarantee, despite safeguards, even with chocolate marketed as Fairtrade, that child labour - as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) - has not been involved in the supply chain. By the time it hits the High Street, cocoa becomes increasingly hard to trace. As it passes from farmer to buyer to wholesalers, exporters, importers and manufacturers, on the journey from cocoa pod to dried bean to chocolate bunny, it becomes more and more likely that the source of the bean will be lost. Together, Ghana and Ivory Coast produce 60% of the world's cocoa. More than 10m people survive off the industry. In a village in Ghana, 12-year-old Ouare Fatao Kwakou, was sold to traffickers by his uncle and taken from neighbouring and impoverished Burkina Faso to work as a cocoa picker. More than a year later, he had not been paid a penny for his work - the profits of his labour going instead to his new cocoa masters and to the uncle who sold him.

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