A justice-based chocolate revolution has been sweeping through schools, parishes and communities in Australia in the days leading up to Easter, with people buying slavery-free certified Easter eggs to avoid chocolate that may have been produced using child labour. Source: ACRATH
ACRATH (Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans), launched the “Be A Good Egg” Easter campaign two weeks ago, and said many organisations have supported the push for slavery-free chocolate, including Young Mercy Links South Australia. Many are buying from popular Australian stores, including Aldi, Haigh’s and Chocolatier.
Sarah Coffey agreed to be the face for ACRATH’s slavery-free Easter chocolate campaign in 2014. Today, she’s still promoting slavery-free chocolate and eating it.
Ms Coffey’s image has been used over the years as a message to consumers that slavery-free chocolate, certified FAIR TRADE or Rainforest Alliance, is as delicious as other chocolate. And so much sweeter because slavery and child labour have not been part of the chocolate’s supply chain.
Be Slavery Free, an Australian coalition of civil society campaigning against modern slavery, human trafficking, forced and child labour, says: “To get an idea of how prevalent child labour is, zoom in on West Africa, where around 75 per cent of the world’s cocoa is grown. A 2020 report found that in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire alone, 1.48 million children were exposed to at least one component of hazardous child labour in cocoa production.”
The “Be A Good Egg” Easter Campaign asks people to Download the Be Slavery Free Chocolate Scorecard to find out what’s really going into chocolate and how favourite brands rate, and look for Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance logos on chocolate wrappers.
Ms Coffey said she checked out the latest Be Slavery Free Scorecard before eating her Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate and was delighted to discover that it rated very highly, with the company working with six cocoa cooperatives: two in Ghana and four in Ivory Coast. The buying practices ensure the growers are paid a just wage.
“Yeah to Tony Chocolonely. The chocolate is absolutely delicious and it’s even better knowing that the chocolate is produced by people paid a fair wage,” said Ms Coffey, who is finishing her primary teaching degree at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.
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