Cadbury accused of child labour on cocoa farms in Ghana

A documentary by Channel 4 Dispatches has accused food giant Mondelez International, which owns the Cadbury brand, of forcing children as young as ten years old to work long hours on cocoa farms in Ghana.

The revelation comes after the investigators involved in the making of the film managed to obtain footage of children working with machetes to harvest cocoa pods that are supplied to Cadbury-owner Mondelez.

The documentary was broadcast on Monday and revealed that these child farmers along with the other workers were being paid less than £2 a day. Mondelēz meanwhile was able to generate global profits of more than £3.3 billion last year.

The chocolate industry had pledged to eliminate child labour more than 20 years ago, but the new revelations are testimony to the fact that it has failed to do so. The footage shows children working in cocoa farms without any protective gear or clothing, according to a report in The Guardian.

The daughter of one of the farmers also claimed that she had hurt her foot once while working with the machete. Another child claimed that said she was being forced to work long hours and was also not allowed to go to school. When asked why she did not speak out, she said she was "afraid."

"It's horrifying to see these children using these long machetes, which are sometimes half their height. Chocolate companies promised to clean this up over 20 years ago. They knew they were profiting from child labour and have shirked their promises," Ayn Riggs, the founder of Slave Free Chocolate, told The Guardian.

Ghana is the world's second-biggest cocoa producer and it is illegal in the country to employ children under 13 to work on cocoa farms. Despite the ban, children are being employed on these cocoa farms.

A 2000 documentary titled "Slavery: A Global Investigation" had made similar revelations about the dark side of the chocolate industry. According to a study by Coco Initiative, an estimated 1.56 million children are involved in child labour in both Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.