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Article: Grand Marnier workers toil for pounds 2 a day on Haiti plantation
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- July 16, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2000 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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GRAND MARNIER, the liqueur with the distinctive tang of oranges,
claims bigger export sales than any other French digestif. But as the
company's French executives headed off for the Bastille holiday
weekend they were fending off allegations that conditions on their
orange plantation in Haiti were little better than those on the
French-owned sugar plantations worked by Haitian slave labourers in
the 18th century.
On the 72-hectare plantation in the hills around Cap-Haitien in
the north of the poorest country in the western hemisphere, hundreds
of men and women are employed to pick and peel the famous Grand
Marnier oranges in conditions which, it is claimed, violate even
Haiti's flimsy ...