Letter to Represenative

Dear Senator Barbara Boxer,

600 B StreetSan Diego, CA 92101-4508


I am writing this letter to formally express my standpoint on an issue that has been occurring for several years in the Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast is home to 600,000 farms which are created to produce 43% of the Cocoa in the world today. Children are currently being mismanaged and forced to work on farms and factories in repulsive conditions. These children ranging from five to twelve years old are being forced to work to produce a product we, as consumers, purchase frequently: chocolate. Time magazine states that, tens of thousands of children are being forced to work on these farms, all of which have been subjected into slavery. Companies, such as Hershey’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Nestle, Kraft, See’s Candies and many other companies are selling us products without the knowledge of the history and where it came from. If someone came to you with a Hershey bar and informed you that this particular chocolate bar was made by a young child in the Ivory Coast who is beaten and mistreated, daily to create this product, would you still purchase it. We as a country are unaware of this issue, and are supporting this dilemma by buying from these companies. I feel it is important that these companies make aware where their product has came from and how children are being abused, because of these companies. These companies are aware of what is going on in the Ivory Coast and have failed to do anything about it, besides expressing their deep concern on the issue.

Once we, as a country, stop being oblivious and ignoring the issue, we can help save thousands of lives and the lives of future children who may be forced into this tragedy as well. I feel, as a leader and someone of greater power in this country, you should become aware of the ignored issues, and address them. We should be aware of what is going on within our country and how we are in any way increasing the problem, instead of creating a solution. The issue of child slavery is nothing that should be ignored. For years we have been a country in outing ourselves before others, it is time we change that pattern and help those who are in desperate need of our help. This all starts with your acknowledgement of the issue and the actions you take as a leader to help us help you solve this issue. A labeling system created in June 2001 to attempt to end child slavery by forcing chocolate companies to provide labels on their products. The purpose of this system was to inform consumers of the history of their chocolate and to identify whether or not the chocolate was considered "slave chocolate". This however failed because of the affect it had on the companies producing Cocoa from the Ivory Coast. We need to create a bill that enforces companies to address where there chocolate has been made, in result of letting consumers learn more information about what they are buying and possibly finding alternative solutions to end this chocolate slavery as well. This issue lacks attention across the media, and it is important that it gets acknowledged across newsstands and TV talk shows, so that we as a country can come together once again to fight a against a important issue.

Thank You for taking time to read this letter
Sincerely,
Makayla Matthews
San Diego, California