ACRATH – Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans – is encouraging Australians to join with the one billion responsible ‘indulgers’ this Easter and watch what chocolate you eat as part of its Indulge Responsibly Easter chocolate campaign.
In its campaign material, ACRATH said that much of the world’s chocolate, including that sold in Australian shops and supermarkets, is produced using cocoa beans harvested by child labourers, many of whom endure enslavement and poor, sometimes dangerous, working conditions. Most are deprived of an education.
The poster for ACRATH’s Indulge Responsibly Easter chocolate campaign.
“This Easter and beyond, we ask you to indulge responsibly, select ethically sourced chocolate, and support companies working to eliminate slavery from their supply chains,” ACRATH said on its website.
“Our campaign poster is packed with actions, resources and hope.” (Download it here.)
The Indulge Responsibly campaign asks people to two things this Easter before buying chocolate.
Firstly, read the Be Slavery Free Chocolate Scorecard and make your purchasing and eating decisions based on the behaviour of the companies.
“The scorecard has been used as a resource by an estimated one billion people around the globe,” ACRATH said. ”So, join this massive and well-meaning global community and find out which companies are trying to do the right thing when it comes to chocolate production.” Find the scorecard here.
Be Slavery Free, on its website, states the Chocolate Scorecard survey and resulting report has grown in popularity each year.
“It first received ethics approval in 2022 from the Humanities and Social Science (HASS) Human Research Ethics committee from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia (The Open University, UK and University of Wollongong, Australia also participated and were part of the ethics approval process). This process ensures the research is honest, rigorous, transparent, respectful, protects participants, and demonstrates that the research team has adhered to the highest contemporary ethical standards of a genuine research study involving human participants,” the Be Slavery Free website said.
“The most recent scorecard highlights some of ACRATH’s favourite chocolate, including delicious Tony Chocolonely and Alter Eco, which are readily available in Australia. While the makers not only produce chocolate that is perfect for those wanting to Indulge Responsibly, they also create awareness of the injustices in the industry,” said ACRATH.
“At Tony’s, we always pay the Living Income Reference Price (LIRP) for all the cocoa we buy. We believe the LIRP is essential for structurally lifting cocoa farmers out of poverty, the root cause of modern slavery and child labour,” according to the Tony Chocolonely website.
“Things aren’t shared fairly in the chocolate supply chain. The chain starts with the millions of farmers that produce cocoa and ends with the billions of consumers that enjoy chocolate. But what about the bit in between? This section is dominated by a group of chocolate giants that profit from keeping the cocoa purchasing price as low as possible. For the farmers, this creates a poverty trap that leads to illegal child labour and modern slavery.”
The second part of the campaign is about eating chocolate that features the Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance logos. The presence of either of these logos says that this chocolate company has committed resources to ensure the cocoa they source is slavery-free.
There’s lots of information about these programs. You can read more here.
Read more about ACRATH’s ethical chocolate program here.