Media Release
STOP THE TRAFFIK COALITION WELCOMES
CADBURY GOING FAIRTRADE IN AUSTRALIA
26 August 2009
The STOP THE TRAFFIK Australia Coalition has welcomed the announcement by Cadbury
and the Fairtrade Association today that Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate
will go Fairtrade
certified in Australia within a year.
“This is great news for impoverished cocoa farmers in West Africa and will help greatly in the
efforts to end child slavery on cocoa plantations”, said Dr Mark Zirnsak, a spokesperson for
the STOP THE TRAFFIK Coalition. “It is also great news for Australian chocolate consumers,
expanding their choice of chocolate that has been certified to be free of child slave labour
and labour that has been trafficked onto the cocoa plantations.”
On 4 March 2009, Cadbury and the Fairtrade Foundation announced that as of the middle of
the year the Cadbury Diary Milk line in the UK and Ireland would become Fairtrade certified,
which has already started to happen.
Today’s announcement extends that commitment to
Australia.
It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of children trapped in slave-like labour
conditions on cocoa plantations and farms in Ghana. In 2001 the chocolate industry
promised to eliminate the use of exploited child labour on cocoa farms
in West Africa by
2005, but have failed to deliver on the promise.
By Cadbury’s own assessment 75% of the world’s production of cocoa comes from West
Africa – Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon.
Cadbury was the first mainstream chocolate company to announce that it will use Fairtrade
certified cocoa for a main-line product line. Fairtrade certification ensures that the farmers
growing the cocoa get a decent price for their produce. Fairtrade standards explicitly prohibit
the use of forced or slave labour and monitor against these standards. Mars has promised to
use only Rainforest Alliance certified cocoa in all their chocolate products by 2020.
“Cadbury should announce a timeline by which all their chocolate products will only use
cocoa that is certified to be free of child slave labour”, said Captain Danielle Strickland of
STOP THE TRAFFIK Australia. “Hopefully their decision will put more pressure on
companies like Nestlé and Lindt to follow suit.”
Nestlé is being prosecuted in the US courts in a civil case for the use of exploited child labour
in the cocoa it uses in its chocolate products.
Media Contacts
Mark Zirnsak, 0409 166 915
Danielle Strickland, 0439 205 236
STOP THE TRAFFIK Australia
STOP THE TRAFFIK Australia is part of the global STOP THE TRAFFIK movement that was
formed in the UK around the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British
Empire.
STOP THE TRAFFIK advocates for action to:
Prevent the Sale of People,
Prosecute the Traffickers, and
Protect the Victims.
In Australia the organisations that are members of STOP THE TRAFFIK currently are:
The Salvation Army;
Justice and International Mission Unit, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Uniting Church in
Australia;
Good Shepherd Social Justice Network;
Anti-Slavery Society;
Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking of Humans (ACRATH);
Oaktree Foundation;
Project Respect;
Baptist World Aid Australia;
UN Association of Australia;
Caritas Australia; and
National Council of Jewish Women Australia (Vic)
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