By: Kevin Dallatore, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, kzd5241@psu.edu, updated by Lion’s Eye Web Staff

From the sweet and savory enjoyment of chocolate comes a dark truth about its origins.

A documentary film about how African children are used in the exploitation and slave trading of harvesting chocolate was shown in the Lion’s Den as part of a presentation in November. The film explored the cocoa plantations in the countries of Ghana and the Ivory Coast since they provide upwards of 80% of the world’s chocolate supply.

Directed by Danish journalist Miki Mistrati, the film investigates the use of child labor and trafficking of child laborers in the chocolate production industry. As the documentary begins, Mistrati is in Cologne, Germany where an annual convention and trade show takes place at the Koelnmesse. Mistrati asks representatives of worldwide chocolate companies about their awareness of where, and how chocolate is produced-—to which they indirectly answer his question by referring to the conditions of the workers.

The film then cuts to a group of children in the country of Mali where it shows someone promise the children that they would be paid to work. The children are then taken to the nearby town of Zegoua where they are handed over to a trafficking transporter. When the children arrive at the next location, they are turned over to another trafficker who then sells them to a farmer for roughly $270 per child. At this farm, the children are forced to perform hazardous labor, beaten frequently and are almost never paid for their work.

As the film pans back to the convention in Cologne, a representative from one of the chocolate companies denies the allegations of trafficking and child labor in their companies.

To investigate on their own, Mistrati and his film crew decide to use hidden cameras to prove that child labor is involved with cocoa production. They find out that the owner of the bus station is aware of the child trafficking and allows it to continue because he is getting paid for the use of his bus stop.

The crew also examines the farms where the children are working to see how they are being treated. At some of the farms, the adults appear suspicious of the documentary crew.

After the crew gathered enough footage, they wanted to show it to the International Labor Organization (ILO) which is part of the United Nations. The ILO fights child labor on an international level and took interest in the footage.

This film was nominated for the Adolf Grimme Award for Information and Culture. As five years have passed since the 2010 release of the documentary, those who have seen it have had their eyes opened to what really happens in the beginning production of chocolate.

The vast majority of those who have commented on this subject have said that it will make them purchase fair trade chocolate from now on to avoid patronizing these companies that buy their cocoa from these child laborers.