Picture: Stéphanie Kilgast/Flickr Creative Commons

Approximately 70 percent of world's cacao comes from West Africa, where roughly around two million children work in cacao plantations. In addition to low salaries, long working days and questionable occupational health and safety practices, many of the children cultivating cacao have ended up in the plantations as victims of human trafficking.

Human rights violations occurring in cacao industry have been a somewhat hot topic in Finland during the last ten years. Customers have been urged to make responsible choices and buy certified cacao. But how much can a customer really influence on cacao production? 

Finnwatch asked biggest Finnish retailers about their Christmas chocolate sold in the supermarkets this year's Christmas season. According to the results of the survey, responsibility certified chocolates are rather rare in the Christmas market. In average, only around 15 percent of the chocolate sold in Finnish Christmas markets is certified. 

– It is impossible to verify the responsibility of cacao without a third party certification. Cacao has no traceability which means that it is practically impossible to verify and monitor the responsibility of non-certified cacao, says the executive director of Finnwatch Sonja Vartiala. 

Chocolate manufacturer Panda confirms the views of Finnwatch. "It is impossible to verify", says the marketing and communications director Ritva Mäenpää when asked about verifying the responsible production of non-certified cacao. 

Could supermarkets have certified chocolate in their product range? 

From biggest chocolate companies in the Finnish market, only Marabou has Rainforest Alliance certified Christmas chocolate in their selection. Panda doesn't have certified Christmas products at all but the company uses UTZ-certification for its other chocolate products. 

Fazer has announced publicly that the company will start using traceable and responsibly produced cacao in all of its products by year 2017. However, the company has not certified any of its products yet. Finnwatch has criticized Fazer several times over too slow action. 

– All the chocolate sold in Finland should be certified. It is unbelievable that after years of discussion nothing has changed in the markets, Vartiala says. 

According to Finnwatch, companies who have not promptly switched to use certified cacao are violating the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. According to the guidelines, a company must "contribute to the effective abolition of child labour". 

In a wider discussion on corporate responsibility, demands for binding human rights due diligence duties are growing. Cacao is a good example on how leaving the responsibility for consumers does not work. Chocolate produced in unknown conditions, potentially by children or slaves, should simply be illegal. In Finnwatch's view, the best way to promote corporate responsibility is by binding obligations and regulations. Legal obligations would translate in companies having to automatically make due diligence, reduce risks and to report on problems in their supply chain.

Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on Finnwatch, on lisensoitu Creative Commons Nimeä-EiKaupallinen-EiMuutoksia 4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä.