A video reveals a famous international chocolate company exploiting child labor to profit

Mondelez International, owner of British confectionery maker Cadbury, has been accused of exploiting children in Ghana after footage showed workers as young as 10 macheting cocoa beans.

The footage appeared in a recent "Dispatches" documentary for Channel 4 in the UK, where two children on a farm, allegedly affiliated with Mondelez, are depicted weeding farms, using sharp knives to open cocoa pods, and swinging sticks with blades harvesting pods from trees.

None of the children appeared to have any protective equipment, and one girl reported that she once cut her foot while using a long machete.

Another girl said she was tricked into working on the farm, claiming she was under the impression that she would go to her uncle's farm to help take care of the children but instead was forced to work long hours on the farm and was not allowed to go to school.

She added that she never spoke about it because she was "too scared".

And illegal child labor is used to supply Cadbury's cocoa beans - Britain's favorite brand of chocolate.

Anti-child labor activists claim that farmers in Ghana are paid less than 2 pounds ($2.62) a day and thus simply cannot hire adult workers.

Ayn Riggs, founder of Slave Free Chocolate, told the Guardian: "It is horrifying to see these kids using these long machetes, sometimes half their length. Chocolate companies promised to organize this more than 20 years ago. They knew they were profiting from labour. The kids broke their promises.

Illegal child labor is being used to supply cocoa beans to Cadbury - Britain's favorite chocolate brand.#Dispatches has been undercover in Ghana where children as young as 10 have been working grueling hours to supply cocoa beans to Cadbury.

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— Channel 4 Dispatches (@C4Dispatches) April 4, 2022

Mondelez, who runs a sustainability program called Cocoa Life, said she is deeply concerned about reports of child labor being used on one of her farms, declaring that "no amount of child labor should be accepted in the cocoa supply chain," vowing to investigate further into the cocoa supply chain. This issue.

A Mondelez International spokesperson said: "We are deeply concerned by the incidents documented in the Dispatches program. We explicitly prohibit child labor in our operations and are working relentlessly to take a stand against it, and we are making significant efforts through Cocoa Life to improve the protection of children in the communities where we export cocoa."

The accusations come ahead of the confectionery industry's busiest time of the year, with more than 300 million pounds ($393.6 million) spent on Easter eggs and chocolate each year in the UK, where Cadbury remains one of Britain's best-known chocolate companies.

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