Case Study : the Chocolate Industry

CASE STUDY

THE CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY

ISSUES:

* CHILD LABOR, boys as young as nine years old are kidnapped, sold to farmers, forced to death to work and even get killed on the cocoa farms of the Ivory Coast and Ghana. (LEGAL, ETHICAL, PHILANTHROPHIC)

* RARELY ENFORCED LAWS, shortage of enforcement officers and local officials accept BRIBES from the slave trading. (LEGAL, ECONOMIC, PHILANTHROPHIC, ETHICAL)

* PROFIT PROTECTION, throughout the cocoa industry, everyone is trying to protect profits. The prices for cocoa beans have been declining in global markets since 1996, a decline that was dictated by global forces over which the farmers had no control. In turn the farmers rely on cheap child labor often forced and abusive. (ECONOMIC)

STAKEHOLDERS

* Slave Children

* Farmers

* Chocolate Industry

* Government

* Media

* Chocolate Consumers

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS

1. Government should provide a concrete step to ensure that farmers are getting a fair price for their product so that farmers will not also be forced to reduced production costs and rely on the cheap labor of children.

2. Intensive enforcement of law as to Child Trafficking.

UTILITARIANISM

1. Government should provide a concrete step to ensure that farmers are getting a fair price for their product so that farmers will not also be forced to reduced production costs and rely on the cheap labor of children.

* This will benefit the farmers and so the children because by watching closely and controlling over the fair price of cocoa the farmers will not turn to slavery to cut their labor cost to survive and the children will not be forced to death to work in cocoa farm.

2. Intensive enforcement of law as to Child Trafficking.

* The children which are the victims will be protected however farmers will find other source to sustain their needs for labor.

JUSTICE AND FAIRNESS FRAMEWORK

* RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

* OPTION #1 – Punishment not conferred...