Industry acts against slavery

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- Chocolate manufacturers, anti-slavery crusaders and a U.S. government agency touted an alliance to combat slavery in the cocoa and chocolate business as a model for other industries to follow around the globe.
"This is the first time that a global industry has tried to rid the whole industry of slavery," said Jolene Smith, deputy director of Free the Slaves, a nongovernmental group based in Washington, D.C.
A series by Knight Ridder reporters last year about child slavery on cocoa farms in West Africa first stunned chocolate manufacturers, according to industry spokesmen.
Among goals of the chocolate alliance: By 2005, chocolate and cocoa are to be certified as made without slave labor. Selling goods in the United States that are made with slave labor is illegal.
One of the original goals of the chocolate alliance was to avoid a boycott or more stringent U.S. rules. Such efforts would only harm the poor farmers who grow cocoa trees, the industry and advocacy groups argued.
But even key participants in the effort admitted they have no idea how widespread the problem is and cannot gauge whether their alliance has had any measurable effect so far.