Lovers urged to eye ethical cocoa

By Marcy Nicholson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Cupid takes aim at sweethearts this Valentine's Day, chocolate lovers should make it their business to know that the candy sating their sweet-tooth isn't coming from children toiling in hard and harsh labour.

So urged an advocate of an organisation that lobbies for humane treatment of workers around the world.

"Consumers associate chocolate with pleasure and indulgence, and that stands in very stark contrast to situations facing workers and the children who are harvesting that cocoa that they are enjoying," said Tim Newman of the International Labour Rights Fund.

Cocoa is chocolate's key ingredient, and Newman said consumers' heightened awareness of child labour in the West African cocoa belt in the past few years has played a vital role in the establishment of company programs designed to improve working conditions there.

The U.S.-based organisation has been pressuring chocolate companies to stop trafficked child labour, which keeps children out of school and has been termed as no better than slavery, in cocoa-growing countries since 2001.

Recently, International Labour Rights Fund released its first Chocolate Company Scorecard, which did not flatter the industry giants.

The report encourages consumers to pressure well-known companies including Hershey Co., Mars Inc. and Nestle, to take more active roles in eliminating child labour from cocoa plantations.

It praises smaller companies including Massachusetts-based Equal Exchange, which sells organic fair-trade cocoa.