Actions speak louder than words, and what we encourage children to do, and eat, will have far more impact than information we tell them.
The pupils selling Fair Trade Kit-Kats may be confused* and not alone in this. The attempt to confuse is quite deliberate, so please let me explain. We ourselves need to think critically if we are to teach our children to do so.
Nestlé is NOT a fair trade company. Only 1% of its cocoa is certified Fair trade. Nestlé does NOT support human rights.
Nestlé Fair trade Kit-Kat benefits the 6,000 farmers who are in the scheme, but millions of people outside the scheme are dependent on Nestlé.
*A survey carried out by Baby Milk Action showed: “There was widespread confusion about the meaning of the Fair trade mark as two-thirds of respondents said if they saw the mark they believed it indicated there were no significant ethical concerns about the company. In truth, the certification process only involves checking the practices surrounding the product on which the mark appears.”
¨ Child Labour
In 2001, Nestlé faced criticism for buying cocoa from the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which may have been produced using child slaves.
According to an investigative report by the BBC, hundreds of thousands of children in Mali, Burkina Faso and Togo were being purchased from their destitute parents and shipped to the Ivory Coast, to be sold as slaves to cocoa farms. The Ivory Coast is the biggest producer of cocoa worldwide. These children, ranging in age from 12 to14 years (and sometimes younger) were being forced to do hard manual labour 80 to 100 hours a week, paid nothing, barely fed and beaten regularly. Nestlé expressed its ‘concerns’ over the use of child labour but could not confirm that none of its chocolate was derived from slave-labour sources.
Although in 2001 Nestlé agreed to the Harkin-Engel protocol for ending child slavery in its cocoa supply chain within 5 years, it has been taken to court by US campaigners for failing to deliver. The International Labour Rights Fund brought the legal action against Nestlé on behalf of children in the Ivory Coast using US legislation on ‘crimes against humanity’. According to ILRF, Nestlé is not denying child slavery is taking place, nor is it denying it is complicit in this. Its defence to the legal action is that child slavery is not a “crime against humanity” and so not covered by the US legislation.
¨ Aggressive Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes
According the World Health Organisation Authority (WHO) 1.5 million babies die every year as a result of inappropriate feeding. Aggressive marketing by companies is one of the reasons babies are not breastfed. Despite this Nestlé continues to push its baby milks in breach of international standards. Nestlé knows that babies fed on formula are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and in poor settings they are more likely to die. Yet it is promoting its formula with logos claiming it ‘protects’ babies.
Monitoring by groups on the ground around the world shows Nestlé is responsible for more violations than any other company.
¨ Palm Oil
Greenpeace launched a campaign in 2010 against Nestlé’s sourcing of palm oil for products like Fairtrade Kit-Kat, which it claims is destroying rainforests in Indonesia, contributing to climate change and endangering orang-utans. Nestlé has promised to stop – by 2015!
¨ The Ethiopia Scandal
Just before Christmas 2002, Oxfam revealed that Nestlé was demanding millions of dollars in compensation from Ethiopia – when the country was in the midst of an extreme drought that put over 11 million people at risk for starvation.
¨ Illegal Extraction of Ground Water
Nestlé production of mineral water involves the abuse of vulnerable water resources. In the Serra da Mantiqueira region of Brazil, home to the “circuit of waters” park whose groundwater has a high mineral content, over-pumping has resulted in depletion and long-term damage. In 2001, residents investigating changes in the taste of the water and the complete dry-out of one of the springs discovered that Nestlé/Perrier was pumping huge amounts of water in the park from a well 150 meters deep. Although Nestlé lost the legal action, pumping continues as it gets through the appeal procedures, a legal process which could take ten years.
¨ Draining Developing Countries’ Groundwater to Make Bottled Water,
In Pakistan, Nestlé is sucking up the local water supply, making entire villages uninhabitable in order to sell mineral water to the upper class, while the poor watch wells run dry and their children fall ill.
In the small village of Bhati Dilwan, villagers have watched their water table sink hundreds of feet since Nestlé moved in. Children are getting sick from the dirty water that is left. Meanwhile, Nestlé spends millions marketing “Pure Life” to wealthy Americans, Europeans, and Pakistanis who can afford to watch their kids grow up healthy.
¨ Breaking EU Rules Designed to Protect Children
As EU Member States launched a new EU Action Plan on Childhood Obesity on 26th February 2014, Nestlé has admitted to violating EU Commission rules regarding its sponsorship of activities in schools.
The eight actions in the Plan include the protection and support of breastfeeding, tougher rules on marketing to children (0-19 years), and a ‘no sponsorship rule’ that aims to ensure that schools are ‘protected environments’. The EU Platform has been an ongoing initiative of the EU Commission since 2005 with the aim of tackling the obesity, heart disease and diabetes epidemic – chronic diseases that are strongly linked to the marketing of unhealthy processed foods.
It’s willingness to violate the rules on school sponsorship is telling. Corporations know there is a lot to be gained. In children’s and parents eyes, school and teachers have authority and legitimacy and can lend this to their brand by association.
¨ Intimidating Trade Unionists in Colombia
¨ Refusing to Accept Court Rulings in the Philippines over workers’ rights.
¨ Numerous Pollution Incidents.
¨ Fraudulent Labelling in South America
¨ Bad for Our Children
These highly sugared, heavily marketed products are believed by some experts to be addictive. They cause obesity, heart disease and diabetes, are implicated in cancers, and are bad for the teeth.
¨ Extreme Right-Wing Agenda
Nestlé’s chairman, Peter Brabeck, is on the record saying that he doesn’t believe there is a human right to clean water. It should be marketed just as any other foodstuff.
If you agree with that then ‘vote’ for him by purchasing Kit-Kat and other Nestlé products, but please don’t encourage my child to do so!
Making Ripples 