A Spooky Story for a Spooky Sweet

With Halloween just around the corner, costumes are being created and America is stocking up with candies and chocolates to satisfy the anticipation of children and adults alike for a night of sweet spookie treats!

Yet as you indulge in rich sweet creamy chocolates you probably don’t think about the hands of who picked the cocoa beans that made your chocolate. You don’t see the face of a child, only six years old, who spends all day, every day carrying bags of cocoa beans, bigger than they are, across the plantation and is barely given enough food to survive in return. You don’t think about the 12,000 children in Cote D’lvoire alone who are child slaves to the chocolate industry.

Well, maybe this year, you will.

Almost half of the world’s chocolate is made from cocoa beans grown in Cote D’lvoire, Africa where over 12,000 children have been trafficked to work as slaves in the cocoa farms. Some of them were kidnapped, some sold by their parents…but all of them robbed of their childhood, robbed of their self worth, and robbed of their rights as a humans.

The good news is you can still indulge without the guilt (at least not of supporting slave trafficking). In the southern California region four chocolate companies are certified as “Traffik Free Guaranteed” chocolate with no involvement by trafficked people in the harvesting of the cocoa beans according to Stop the Traffik organization (www.stopthetraffik.com). These chocolates can be found at five different easily accessible locations.

With the upcoming holiday seasons take a stand against the modern day slavery throughout the world. Only support chocolate companies who can guarantee they are traffic free.

Here’s where you can buy “Traffik Free Guarantee” chocolate:

Trader Joe’s
-Trader Joe’s Swiss 71% dark Chocolate
-Trader Joe’s Swiss Milk Chocolate
Target
-Green & Black’s Maya Gold Organic Dark Chocolate Bar
Ten Thousand Village’s in Pasadena, CA
-Divine Bars
-Divine Milk
-Divine Dark
-Divine Milk with Hazelnut
Equal Exchange
-Organic Very Dark Chocolate
-Organic Dark Chocolate with Almonds
-Organic Chocolate Espresso Bean
Whole Foods Market
-Green & Black’s Maya Gold Organic Dark Chocolate Bar