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Africa Action Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tens of Thousands of Schoolchildren Nationwide Will Protest Poverty and Child Labor-Tainted Cocoa during Third Annual Reverse Trick-or-Treating this Halloween
Thursday, October 22, 2009 (Washington, DC) – Ten to twenty thousand groups of children will hand chocolate back to adults during their regular neighborhood trick-or-treating rounds this Halloween. The children will distribute Fair Trade certified chocolate attached to a card explaining the labor and environmental problems in the cocoa industry globally and how Fair Trade provides a solution. The event, Reverse Trick-or-Treating, was launched three years ago to raise awareness of the pervasive problem of child labor, forced labor and trafficking in the cocoa fields, to empower consumers to press the chocolate industry for more fair cocoa sourcing policies, to shift the industry toward sourcing Fair Trade certified cocoa, and to inform consumers about Fair Trade companies that are leading the way to industry reform. Fair Trade standards prohibit the use of abusive child labor, contain extensive environmental sustainability protections, and enable farmers to escape poverty. The Reverse-Trick-or-Treating program has joined nonprofit organizations, such as Global Exchange and Africa Action, with Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate companies such as Equal Exchange, Alter Eco, Sweet Earth, and Coco-Zen and local schools, faith groups and youth organizations to raise public awareness about Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate. This year’s event comes on the heels of two important developments in the cocoa industry. First, Interpol announced in August that it identified and rescued fifty-four children from slavery in cocoa fields in Cote d’Ivoire. The children were as young as 11 years old, endured hazardous working conditions, labored 12 hours a day, and were not paid for their work. This demonstrates that the chocolate industry has still not gone far enough to end child slavery and trafficking in the cocoa fields, even though the top chocolate companies committed to end these practices as part of the Harkin-Engel Protocol signed in 2001. Over sixty national nonprofit organizations and chocolate companies have united to call on the cocoa industry to embrace stronger cocoa sourcing standards in a statement entitled the “Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing” which can be viewed at www.reversetrickortreating.org. Second, in 2009, Cadbury became the first major chocolate brand to achieve Fair Trade certification for its Dairy Milk chocolate bars in the United Kingdom, with planned certification in additional countries. Human rights, Fair Trade, and anti-trafficking activists have applauded Cadbury’s leadership, while urging the company to extend Fair Trade certification to its products distributed in the United States. A group of advocates have also been actively pressing Hershey’s to become the first mainstream U.S.-based company achieve Fair Trade certification. “Kids have a well-developed sense of fairness. I regularly hear stories of U.S. schoolchildren who are really outraged to learn that mainstream chocolate companies are making them complicit in the enslavement of their peers,” said Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, Director of Global Exchange’s Fair Trade Campaign, “Kids are eager to show solidarity and make it possible for their peers to do go to school and go out and play. That is why so many kids are thrilled to participate in Reverse Trick-or-Treating and make a difference. Now, it’s up to the chocolate companies to listen to their important message.” To cover this story, interview a participating family, or follow children during reverse-trick-or-treating, please contact Michael Stulman at 202-546-7961 or michael.Stulman@africaaction.org or Adrienne Fitch-Frankel at 415-575-5553 or Adrienne@globalexchange.org. The Reverse Trick-or-Treating campaign is an initiative of the human rights advocacy group Global Exchange, which has a long track record of successfully encouraging major corporations to adopt new business practices. Africa Action is the oldest organization in the U.S. working on African affairs. We are a national organization based in Washington, DC. Our work dates back to 1953, the year our oldest predecessor organization was founded in New York. Today, in partnership with activists and civil society organizations throughout the United States and in Africa, Africa Action is working to change U.S. foreign policy and the policies of international institutions in order to support African struggles for peace and development. Nearly a quarter million Fair Trade Chocolates and informational cards have been provided in the United States by Equal Exchange, Alter Eco, Sweet Earth, and Coco-Zen and in Canada by La Siembra, under the leadership of Equal Exchange. Equal Exchange is a full service provider of high quality, organic coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate and healthy snacks. 100% of Equal Exchange products are fairly traded, benefiting over 30 small farmer cooperatives in 16 countries around the world. The national organizations with a lead role in Reverse Trick-or-Treating are Africa Action, Fair Trade Federation, Global Exchange, Green America, International Labor Rights Forum, Not for Sale, Oasis/Stop the Traffik, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and the United Methodist Church. ####
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