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Article: Slaves to chocolate: thousands of boys toil on Ivory Coast cacao farms.
- Article from:
- Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- April 26, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Weekly Reader Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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YAMOUSSOUKRO, Ivory Coast -- Mmmm ... chocolate. Sweet, mouthwatering, delicious. Chocolate is so yummy that Americans spend $13 billion a year buying chocolate cookies, chocolate candies, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cakes, and other chocolate treats.
But the story of chocolate is anything but sweet. According to Free the Slaves, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., thousands of young boys toil under slave-like conditions on cacao plantations in the West African nation of Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) to harvest the cacao (k [inverted e]-KAY-oh) bean, the main ingredient in chocolate. (Cocoa, a chocolate powder, is also made from cacao beans.)
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