The cocoa bean or simply cocoa, also called cacao, is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter can be extracted. Cocoa beans native to the Amazon rainforest are the basis of chocolate and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexican drink.
Mary Teresa Goudie, Baroness Goudie is a British politician and life peer, currently sitting for the Labour Party. In 1998, she was made a life peer as Baroness Goudie, of Roundwood in the London Borough of Brent. She is on the board of Vital Voices and is involved in promoting gender equity with both the G8 and G20.
Free the Slaves is an international non-governmental organization and lobby group, established to campaign against the modern practice of slavery around the world. It was formed as the sister organization of Anti-Slavery International but has since become a separate entity and has no relationship with it. The organization was created as a result of research done by Kevin Bales in his book, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
Kevin Brian Bales,, is Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the University of Nottingham, co-author of the Global Slavery Index, and was a co-founder and previously president of Free the Slaves, the US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International.
Global Exchange was founded in 1988 and is an advocacy group, human rights organization, and a 501(c)(3) organization, based in San Francisco, California, United States. The group defines its mission as, "to promote human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice around the world." Global Exchange deals with a wide range of issues, ranging from the U.S. war in Iraq to worker abuse and fair trade issues.
Child labour is a recurring issue in cocoa production. Ivory Coast and Ghana, together produce nearly 60% of the world's cocoa each year. During the 2018/19 cocoa-growing season, research commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago in these two countries and found that 1.48 million children are engaged in hazardous work on cocoa farms including working with sharp tools and agricultural chemicals and carrying heavy loads. That number of children is significant, representing 43 percent of all children living in agricultural households in cocoa growing areas. During the same period cocoa production in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana increased 62 percent while the prevalence of child labour in cocoa production among all agricultural households increased 14 percentage points. Attention on this subject has focused on West Africa, which collectively supplies 69% of the world's cocoa, and Côte d'Ivoire, supplying 35%, in particular. The 2016 Global Estimates of Child Labour indicate that one-fifth of all African children are involved in child labour. Nine percent of African children are in hazardous work. It is estimated that more than 1.8 million children in West Africa are involved in growing cocoa. A 2013–14 survey commissioned by the Department of Labor and conducted by Tulane University found that an estimated 1.4 million children aged 5 years old to 11 years old worked in agriculture in cocoa-growing areas, while approximately 800,000 of them were engaged in hazardous work, including working with sharp tools and agricultural chemicals and carrying heavy loads. According to the NORC study, methodological differences between the 2018/9 survey and earlier ones, together with errors in the administration of the 2013/4 survey have made it challenging to document changes in the number of children engaged in child labour over the past five years.
Stephen John Chalke is a British Baptist minister, the founder of the Oasis Charitable Trust, a former United Nations' Special Adviser on Human Trafficking and a social activist.
Oasis Charitable Trust, commonly known as Oasis, is a UK-based Christian registered charity. It was founded by the Reverend Steve Chalke in September of 1985. Chalke had been assistant minister at Tonbridge Baptist Church, Kent, for four years. He left this job with the aim of setting up a hostel for homeless young people. Oasis now has over 5,000 staff in the UK as well as thousands more volunteers.
Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) is a volunteer-based non-profit organization focused on veganism and food justice. Its mission statement is "to create a more just and sustainable world by recognizing the power of one's food choices." The organization was founded in 2006 by Lauren Ornelas, who continues to lead it. Based in San Jose, California, the F.E.P. opened an additional chapter in Seattle, Washington, in 2016.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. It is distinct from people smuggling, which is characterized by the consent of the person being smuggled.
Croydon Community Against Trafficking (CCAT) originated in 2004 when a group of local residents were confronted with research that had been released by The Poppy Project. The report detailed the scale of prostitution and exploitation across London and the connections to the issue of trafficking. The group set about their own research in an effort to either disprove or reinforce this research or find a different situation altogether. Their focus became, and remains today, the issue of Human Trafficking - specifically, women in Croydon who are forced, against their will, to work in brothels.
Chab Dai is an organization founded in Cambodia in 2005 by Helen Swornthat focuses on abolishing sexual abuse, human trafficking, and exploitation. It aims to bring an end to trafficking and sexual exploitation through coalition building, community prevention, advocacy and research. While the organization was founded in Cambodia, Chab Dai also has additional offices in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. In August 2023, they joined other Anti-Trafficking Organizations in a statement about the factual inaccuracies of the movie Sound of Freedom (film)
California Against Slavery (CAS) is a 501(c)(3) organization that launched a California state wide directory of organizations and agencies that provide services to victims and survivors of human trafficking, sex trafficking, and labor trafficking. The organization focuses on the specific goal of creating a Connected and Collaborating California. The directory is meant to aid survivors, service providers and concerned citizens in joining the fight against human trafficking. The CAS website contains a page with Resources that directs the user to Awareness Materials, Trainings, Legislation, Prevention Education, Research, and Legislative Models.
Challenging heights is a non-governmental organization in Ghana protecting the rights of children and focusing their anti-trafficking efforts in the fishing and cocoa industry. According to Challenging Heights, over 24,000 children in Ghana fall victim to the worst forms of child labour annually. Challenging Heights aim is to end Child Trafficking in the next 5 years through Rescue & Recovery, Prevention, and Advocacy.
Walk Free is an international human rights organisation based in Perth, Western Australia. Its main goal is ending modern slavery in all its forms.
Hope for Justice is a global non-profit organisation which aims to end human trafficking and modern slavery. It is active in the United Kingdom, United States, Cambodia, Norway, Australia, Ethiopia and Uganda and has its headquarters in Manchester, England.
The Freedom Fund is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to identifying and investing in the most effective frontline efforts to end slavery. In 2017, the International Labour Organization reported that on any given day in 2016, there were 40 million people living in modern slavery worldwide across a wide range of industries.
