Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum
It is expected that US consumers will spend $1.5 billion on chocolate this Valentine's Day. Before you pick up chocolate kisses for your sweetheart for Valentine's Day today, don't forget about the continued use of forced, trafficked and child labor in the cocoa industry. To find out what different companies are doing to address these abuses in chocolate -- and many other products including flowers and jewelry -- check out Free2Work.org.
One of the only major chocolate companies that has not made commitments to trace its cocoa and institute international labor rights standards among its suppliers is the Hershey Company. You can take action NOW to tell Hershey to raise the bar for cocoa growing communities by taking stronger action to eliminate labor rights abuses in its cocoa supply chain and starting to source Fair Trade cocoa.
Send a message to Hershey in all three of these ways NOW!
- Send an e-mail to Hershey;
- Post a message like this on Hershey's Facebook page: Have a heart on Valentine’s Day! It’s time to raise the bar by stopping child labor and using Fair Trade Certified cocoa! http://bit.ly/HersheyCo
- Post a tweet like this on Twitter: @Hersheys: Have a heart on #Valentines Day! Stop #childlabor & start using #fairtrade #chocolate! http://bit.ly/HersheyCo #VDay (Plz RT!)
After taking action online, you can show extra love by collecting petitions in your community. Plus, it's not too late to send Valentines to Hershey and host a screening of The Dark Side of Chocolate -- find out more here! You can check out a sample of some of the Valentines that young people across the country have already sent to Hershey here.
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