According to the US Department of Labor, most of the cocoa we consume is produced in countries using child labor: Cameroon ivory coast, ghinea, Ghana, Nigeria.

These child workers labor for long, punishing hours, using dangerous tools and

facing frequent exposure to dangerous pesticides as they travel great distances in

the grueling heat. And of course no education leaving not much hope for a future

out of poverty. By international labor laws this is illegal.

In Ivory Coast (supplier of 40% of the worlds cocoa), there are 109,000 child laborers, 10,000 of whom are forced laborers—slaves, who work without pay and are

subject to beatings and abuse. All major cocoa companies buy cocoa from farms

using children, and reap profits off the backs of these kids.

In the contemporary documentary "The Dark Side of Chocolate," the filmmakers document one such slave, a 12 year old girl from Segou, Mali, named Maryam. Maryam's parents were quite poor, so they sent her to Ivory Coast to make money to send back home to her family. She was sent by bus 270 miles to the south, to Zegoua, on the border with the Ivory Coast, with an escort. Her escort was really a trafficker, and she had really been sold into slavery without her or her family knowing- the going price is 230 euros, all of which goes to the smugglers. When she showed up there she had open sores on her knees and legs. If she had not been intercepted she would have been handed over to be smuggled by motorcycle, across dirt roads, into Ivory Coast, to work for no pay, never to attend school, in a country whose language she didn’t know.