M&M’s, Snickers and Oreos??!! It was July 30th, the World Day of Trafficking Against Human Persons, and, on my webinar screen, Dominican sister, Brigid Clingman, had been outlining two of the significant industries that profit from child labour: chocolate and electronics.¹

But not M&Ms’s, surely? One of my favorite candy snacks stands accused.

I am vaguely conscious of ethical concerns around the production of chocolate, one of the long list of ways I, ensconced in my all-too-familiar socio-economic space, find myself to be a complicit environmental/ human rights violator. Typically overwhelmed, I am used to naming my powerlessness in the face of it all, holding my guilt lightly, and carrying on. Today, however, as stark information and statistics make their way across my screen, my complacency shifts. The time has come to pay attention.

I am disturbed to learn of the recent filing of a lawsuit accusing chocolate giants Mars, Mondelez and Cargill

“of purposely dragging their feet to phase out the use of child labor, misleading the public about their efforts and condemning generations of children to a life of poverty and dangerous conditions.”

An international agreement brokered in 2001 was supposed to have ended child labour by 2005. Until today, however, successive generations of children in African countries such as Ghana and the Ivory Coast, from as young as four years of age, are forced to work up to 14 hours per day, using chain saws and machetes, applying herbicides and pesticides without protective equipment, carrying sacks of pods weighing over 100 pounds…. Their families systematically cheated out of fair prices for their crops, they don’t get to school.²

On occasions when my companion in community and I bring visitors to St. Patrick’s Cathedral at the heart of New York City, we stop to contemplate the replica of Canadian artist, Timothy Schmalz’s bronze sculpture, Let the Oppressed Go Free, the only monument to human trafficking in existence today.³

The image of St. Bakhita, herself once a slave, opening up the underground, releasing persons bound by sexual exploitation, forced labour and debt bondage is compelling. In Schio, Italy, the 20-foot original is installed near her remains. On October 5, 2023, on the University of Toronto campus, St. Regis College unveiled a full-size outdoor replica “to shine light on the dark world of human trafficking in Canada and throughout the world.”⁴ In the words of Pope Francis,

“Human trafficking will always exist if it is kept underground.”⁵

The July 30th webinar is winding down, and Brigid Clingman is responding to a question about what one person can do in the face of society’s oppressive structures. She uses the analogy of a snowflake – the weight of one snowflake is negligible, but, in the winter, tree branches break because of the combined weight of snowflakes. In other words, she goes on, if one person refuses to buy a Hershey bar, the world will not change. But, if all of us refuse to buy Hershey bars and let Hershey know we are doing so, we will change the world.⁶

I no longer reach out for M&M’s without a second thought. And filling up the Contact Us form on the Mars, Incorporated website is next on my to-do list.