“Every piece of chocolate begins somewhere, and sometimes it begins with a child who will never taste it.”- unknown. This quote is so true, and it is crazy that so many children are harvesting the chocolate that we eat. I will be telling you about children that work on cacao farms, and how they end up there.

It is so crazy to think that children our age and younger are working to make something that we eat a lot of, and some workers don’t get paid or even go to school and barely get fed. According to NORC, “Cocoa and chocolate are a $100 billion industry, and child labor has been a persistent part of cacao production. Almost 1.5 million children are engaged in hazardous child labor on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together produce almost 60 percent of the world’s cocoa.” This means that there are so many kids working on these farms instead of enjoying their childhood and going to school and learning.

Each kid on a cacao farm has a completely different story from everyone else. Some were kidnapped, some came to find work to get paid and take money home to their family and so many other reasons. According to Humanium, “The children of Western Africa are surrounded by intense poverty, and many begin working at a young age to help support their families. Some children end up on the cocoa farms because they need work and traffickers tell them that the job pays well.” This means that not all families in Western Africa have enough money to support their families so they have to send their kids out to try and make money to support their families.

In conclusion, too many kids are working on cacao farms and wasting their childhoods to maybe get paid a few dollars and not get fed much. It is important to make sure we can get these kids off these farms and have the freedom to do what they want when they want. If you want to read about this problem, check out the book “The Bitter Side Of Sweet” by Tara Sullivan. If you want to see how terrible their life is, here is a link to see what it’s like.