Eight Malian citizens are suing Nestle, Mars, Cargill and other chocolate companies, saying they were trafficked as children and forced to harvest cocoa used in these companies' products, reported Bloomberg. The companies are being sued under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a law that makes companies civilly liable if they profit off child slavery. The plaintiffs' attorneys said the companies benefited because, through the use of child slavery, they were able to sell chocolate more cheaply. The plaintiffs are represented by International Rights Advocates, which filed the suit in federal district court in Washington, D.C.

 A U.S. Labor Department report from last autumn said that child slavery unfortunately remains a key part of the chocolate industry. The report, produced in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago, estimates that, overall, about 1.6 million children are actively engaged in cocoa production, and most of them are conducting hazardous work such as wielding machetes, carrying heavy loads or working with pesticides. This has gone on despite pledges from the industry in 2001, 2005, 2008 and 2010 to eliminate at least the worst instances of this practice from the supply chain. The report noted that in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two primary suppliers, the practice actually increased from 31 percent to 45 percent between 2008 and 2019.

This is unfortunately only part of the large web of modern slavery undergirding much of the global economy today. The United Nation's International Labor Organization estimated in 2016 that there were about 40 million people in slavery, 25 percent of whom are believed to be children.