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The bitter reality is that in a primary agricultural household economy, there will be child labor. This has been the case through history, and even in the Unite

The bitter reality is that in a primary agricultural household economy, there will be child labor. This has been the case through history, and even in the United States the child labor laws exempt work on a family farm. The economics just really don’t work out otherwise. If in a fit of “virtue” we decide to ban that without taking the economic realities into consideration, you are likely to make it far worse. Living with your family and working with them harvesting cocoa is far better than starving, begging, or prostitution.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
This is certainly an important thing to keep in mind but at least some of these situations aren't so happy: > In 2001, the report A Taste of Slavery: How Your Chocolate May be Tainted won a George Polk Award. In it were claims that traffickers promised paid work, housing, and education to children who were forced to labour and undergo severe abuse, that some children were held forcibly on farms and worked up to 100 hours per week, and that attempted escapees were beaten. It quoted a former slave: "The beatings were a part of my life" and "when you didn't hurry, you were beaten."
- legitster 3y ago
  To OP's point, sending children off to work in a farm is still an unhappy choice of desperation. This is also an example from over 20 years ago - before NGOs and brands really began policing this stuff. It could be there has been some improvement since then.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    The world was also MUCH poorer 20 years ago. A good friend of mine is from a (still) poor farming family from rural Vietnam. When they were growing up on their coffee farm in the late 90s/early 2000s they lived in what was basically a mud hut with dirt floors, and helped with the harvest directly. That friend (and their siblings) all ended up attending college in Saigon and getting white collar jobs, and their family still runs the same farm. The difference was agricultural technology and automation became much cheaper, so there was less of a need to have a lot of kids do manual labor, so they sent their kids thru K-12 and later college. My dad's generation had a similar thing happen as well in North India after the Green Revolution. His dad was working on harvesting, sowing, and other agricultural related work at all times when he was a kid, yet when the Green Revolution happened - and with it reforms in rural financing along with cheap agricultural technology - there was no reason for my dad to live that kind of lifestyle, so he was able to attend school instead of rotting out in a field. Democratizing relevant agricultural technology AND enhancing rural financing has a night and day difference in alleviating rural poverty.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

This is certainly an important thing to keep in mind but at least some of these situations aren't so happy: > In 2001, the report A Taste of Slavery: How Your Chocolate May be Tainted won a George Polk Award. In it were claims that traffickers promised paid work, housing, and education to children who were forced to labour and undergo severe abuse, that some children were held forcibly on farms and worked up to 100 hours per week, and that attempted escapees were beaten. It quoted a former slave: "The beatings were a part of my life" and "when you didn't hurry, you were beaten."

legitster 3y ago
To OP's point, sending children off to work in a farm is still an unhappy choice of desperation. This is also an example from over 20 years ago - before NGOs and brands really began policing this stuff. It could be there has been some improvement since then.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  The world was also MUCH poorer 20 years ago. A good friend of mine is from a (still) poor farming family from rural Vietnam. When they were growing up on their coffee farm in the late 90s/early 2000s they lived in what was basically a mud hut with dirt floors, and helped with the harvest directly. That friend (and their siblings) all ended up attending college in Saigon and getting white collar jobs, and their family still runs the same farm. The difference was agricultural technology and automation became much cheaper, so there was less of a need to have a lot of kids do manual labor, so they sent their kids thru K-12 and later college. My dad's generation had a similar thing happen as well in North India after the Green Revolution. His dad was working on harvesting, sowing, and other agricultural related work at all times when he was a kid, yet when the Green Revolution happened - and with it reforms in rural financing along with cheap agricultural technology - there was no reason for my dad to live that kind of lifestyle, so he was able to attend school instead of rotting out in a field. Democratizing relevant agricultural technology AND enhancing rural financing has a night and day difference in alleviating rural poverty.