Case Study: Slavery in the Chocolate Industry Essay Example
Case Study: Slavery in the Chocolate Industry Essay Example

Case Study: Slavery in the Chocolate Industry Essay Example

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  • Pages: 3 (733 words)
  • Published: November 6, 2016
  • Type: Research Paper
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This case is about the slavery of young men in the Chocolate industry. Chocolate is made from the highly prized top quality cocoa beans that are grown on farms in West Africa, especially the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which make up close to half of the world’s chocolate. Slavery in the chocolate industry raises many issues including systematic, corporate and individual ethical issue. Here I’m going to discuss the issue I observed in this case. The first issue is the child slavery, it was said that these young boys were kidnapped from different villages.

They were not just kidnapped but they were also forced to work, and are beaten and whipped by the cocoa farmers. Many of them even died because of this suffering and also because some of t

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hem were killed. The second issue is that the laws are not enforced due to the lack of control of the government to its people and the lack of resources or the desire to enforce the laws. The third one is Chocolate manufacturers who know this issue were unable to take action to improve the situation and the last one is that chocolate consumers are unaware or choose to be ignorant of the cost involved to create chocolate.

In the second question that is asking about my opinion on child slavery whether it is absolutely wrong or is it just relatively wrong? My opinion is that it is completely wrong, slavery, kidnapping and killing are all wrong. The way they treat them as slaves is just like the old times where they are treated like animals, whipped and beaten to death jus

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to make them work. These children are human too in fact they are much more fragile and weak. They are the same as we are, treat them right, they didn’t wish to be in that position.

If you put yourself in their shoe, you will definitely agree that child slavery and what they are doing is wrong. On the third question asking who shares in the moral responsibility for the slavery occurring in the chocolate industry. I believed that all of the people involved in this issue, starting from the African farmers and the African government to the American chocolate companies and also the distributor and consumer like us who know about the situation but still continue to purchase these chocolates.

In the issue that occurred, all of them share a moral responsibility or moral blame of what happened. Although they are all morally responsible, there are circumstances that will make their responsibility void, lighter or even bigger. One example is the consumer of this product, although they share the same responsibility, I think that not all of them can be blamed because not all of them are aware of this problem.

They are ignorant of what is happening, and they may be excused of it. Just like me, it is the first time that I heard of this issue and I don’t have any idea that these chocolates that I always enjoy were a product of child slavery. The next one is the chocolate companies I believe that their responsibility are much higher than the consumer, because in the article it was said that some of these companies are aware of

what’s happening and still continue to produce tainted products.

Although I can say that their responsibility is quite lessened because they are not the one who is doing this child slavery. Still they are the same with the person who beats and whipped these children. In some of the companies today, businesses only understand one thing, profit, and chocolate makers are no exception. The last one were the African farmer and African government, I believe that they are the most responsible for this issue.

They are the root of all this commotion, the African farmers who knows that child slavery is wrong, kidnapping is wrong, beating and whipping children is wrong and killing is wrong, but still continue to do all of these and magnify their responsibility. The African government, whose responsibility is to serve and protect its people, they knew all along about this issue, but do nothing and they even accept bribery from this illegal ways. Good thing there are still many people who are concerned of the wrong things that is happening and does good things to be able to change it.

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