A human-rights group has filed another lawsuit against cocoa-processing giants on behalf of former child slaves on African cocoa farms.
Nestlé S.A., Cargill, Mars Wrigley, Mondelēz International, the Hershey Co., Barry Callebaut and Olam International are defendants in a suit filed Feb. 12 in federal district court in Washington, D.C. It was brought by International Rights Advocates on behalf of eight residents of Mali who claimed to have been tricked into accepting, as children, employment on Ivory Coast cocoa farms that was de facto slavery.
The case is being brought against the cocoa processors because they are alleged to have benefited from low costs for cocoa produced by slave labor. It’s being pursued under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which allows citizens of other nations to sue in U.S. courts if they allege that a U.S.-based company benefited from trafficked or forced labor.
“These companies will continue to profit from child slavery until they are forced to stop,” Terry Collingsworth, executive director of International Rights Advocates, said in a statement. “The purpose of this lawsuit is to force them to stop.”
That organization also has another federal lawsuit pending, against Nestlé and Cargill, on behalf of other alleged cocoa slave laborers. That one was brought under the Alien Tort Statute, a centuries-old statue that allows non-U.S. citizens to seek redress in American courts. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments on whether the case can go forward under that legal theory.
