PTSD And Self-Control Disorders In Chocolate

Chocolate is everywhere in daily American life; it’s in our desserts, entire aisles are devoted to it in grocery stores, stores dedicated to its selling, even our holidays are highly associated with chocolate. Due to the abundance of chocolate products; on average, Americans will eat a chocolate product on a weekly basis (Qureshi). A majority of cocoa beans, the key ingredient of chocolate, comes from Western Africa, where child labor and often slavery runs rampant. The laborers and slaves, who cultivate the cocoa, work with dangerous weapons and chemicals in an inhospitable environment. The children, who are being forcibly worked, on the cocoa farms tend to be from the ages 12 to 16 to as young as 5 years old; these young ages are when

many cognitive abilities are honed and developed (Child). The effects of child labor and slavery, in the chocolate industry, leads to different developmental or cognitive effects and perpetuates the cycle of poverty.
Children are often brought into the industry at a very young age, for a variety of reasons, this plays a role in how a child’s brain develops. There are many family dynamics that often play a role in children being sold into slavery. Relatives, the people many Americans attribute as being guardians of a child, of the child laborers will often be the ones selling them to the farms. This happens without knowing the environment the children will be forced to work in (Child). Children whose parents are divorced, which is quite common in Ghana and other rural West African countries, are more likely to sell their child into labor or slavery. This often happens due to both parents being coming poorer, since they are now single-income, which forces them into the labor in an attempt to help the family (Berlan). There are many different psychological effects that can be assumed could be an outcome. The children how are sold by their family can have many different long terms effects on their life, such as a lack of trust in others, which inhibits future relationships. Children can be tricked with false promises, stolen, and sold into the industry. Mike Dottridge, president of Anti-Slavery International, once put it, "The selling of people was a scandal hundreds of years ago... That it's happening today with children, and on an even greater scale, is shocking beyond belief” (Lamb). The children that work on these farms are typically surrounded by poverty, which leads them to working on these farms and acting on falsities, in an effort to support their families. Many traffickers trick these children into working these jobs with the false promise of money (Child). This can also lead to a long term lack of trust and doubt, in others and in one’s self. Once the children are either payed for or abducted, they are smuggled from, Mali and Burkina Faso, into the neighboring countries of Ghana and Ivory Coast, to work on the cocoa farms (Escobedo). The BBC had discovered a smuggling ship, on a course for cocoa farms, where there were dozens of male and female children; some of these children were missing, stolen, or lost, while others had been willingly sold by their parents (Qureshi). The mental health effects of being bought or stolen into slavery or labor can have long lasting effects on the child.
To further understand why the children develop different long term effects, what happens during their time enslaved, or laboring, if they ever do get released, is crucial. Cocoa beans are generally seen as a commodity crop, or cash crop. The revenue generated from the beans makes up the majority of the Ivory Coast's exports. As it would in any industry, the prices for cocoa only drop as the industry insists on its cheapness. To keep these prices at the level the industry demands they're at, farmers often are forced to utilize child labor or slavery. This demand for the children brings them to cocoa farms, whether through traffickers, their parents, or through their own will. They are forced to work from dawn until evening hours, doing an array of jobs; some clear the forest with machinery, others collect cocoa pods from the tops of trees using machetes. The machetes are used to open the cocoa pods, often causing harm, with every attempt to open the pod; many of the children have scars as proof of this constant danger. The bags, where they store the cocoa bean pods, can weigh around 100 pounds each. "Some of the bags were taller than me. It took two people to put the bag on my head. And when you didn’t hurry, you were beaten," Aly Diabate, an escaped child slave laborer. The conditions the children work in, alone, is mentally scarring to the children. The injuries the children can obtain can correlate to many conditions, such as PTSD, as these injuries are painful and traumatic. Large amounts of toxic chemicals are sprayed on these pods, to keep the insects at bay, which can cause the children to come in contact with these harmful chemicals on a daily basis. This can have negative effects on a child’s developing brain, due to the toxic chemicals affecting them and stunting cognitive abilities. The jobs that are forced onto them violate labor laws set in place by the United Nations, or the UN. Foods, such as corn paste and bananas, are given to the children. When it is time for the laborers to rest, they sleep on planks, without clean water, and without any proper sanitary restrooms. Children and adults are sometimes locked within these 'homes' to prevent escape. The fact that they are locked into their sleeping areas shows a certain desperateness to escape, due to a child wishing to leave something which they may have lived at for as long as they can remember. Being enslaved also has long term effects on a child's mind, including PTSD and negative effects on future relationships, such as lack of trust or fear. When disobeying orders or not doing orders up to the standard of their overseer, physical punishments can occur. When workers begin to slow down work or to enforce other rules, such as no attempts at escape, is most commonly when beatings happen. “The beatings were a part of my life. I had seen others who tried to escape. When they tried, they were severely beaten,” Aly Diabate, a former child slave laborer, on the topic of punishments (Child). Constant beatings affect a child's mental state in ways such as PTSD, self-doubt, and self-control issues. The results of being a slave at cocoa farms can have long term effects on a laborer.
How the children got into the industry and what happened when they were there, lead to long term effects.

Multiple times the terms PTSD, self-doubt, and self-control disorders were mentioned or were a common outcome. PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is commonly faced by victims of abuse, due to the traumatic events experienced. PTSD can result from beaten for not reaching the daily quota of cocoa beans or from accidentally maiming their arm during the cocoa bean’s harvest. Both of those examples are quite common within the industry. PTSD can inhibit the suffers, as they do not want to be exposed to anything similar to what their PTSD may stems from, which can affect their day to day lives. The self-esteem or self-doubt disorders can lead to lack of, as the name suggests, self esteem; it can also lead to a lack of trusting and meaningful relationships in the suffers’ life. A self-control disorder can involve a victim to attempt to control the small parts of their lives, due to them feeling as if their life is completely out of their control; an example would be an eating disorder. Working a full time job, during childhood, hinders cognitive development, as they can’t attend school. Children who have part-time job score 12% lower than children who have no job, which gives them more time for school and studying. Not only does child labor affect cognitive abilities, but it also affects social development. Children who work twenty hours or more are more likely to turn towards improper behaviors such as drug abuse. These behaviors often affect their already poor education, sometimes leading them to score badly or quit their schooling altogether. The studies that prove this can be applied to the slave laborers in the chocolate industry. The children laboring have little to no access to education, which as the previously shown studies prove, leads to cognitive impairment and further negative effects. Children learn how to interact with other people and how to bond

with them, such as parents or children of the same age, their peers. During the time most children would be learning social behaviors, these child laborers are working, which leads to further problems when they are adults, such as emotional problems and insecurity. Due to the children's lack of exposure to others, they often feel isolated or alone, which can lead to depression. Developmental setbacks can be caused by health risks such as physical or hard labor which is above their capacity, stunting growth amongst other things. Malnutrition, which is often observed in child laborers, also affects the children in their physical development (Gamble). How the children are treated, what they are exposed to, and how they enter into the chocolate industry, will often lead to mental health problems, amongst many other things.
All of these factors, children’s mental health, how they are treated during the time they are forced into labor, and how the children got into the labor, help perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Around 100,000 children work on cocoa farms, often against their will, in Ivory Coast (Escobedo). Forty percent of children working on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast do not attend school. These statistics greatly violate the ILO's Child Labor Standards. These children are held back from an education, which has great effects on them for the rest of their lives (Child). Roughly 40,000 child laborers, from Ivory Coast, do not attend any schooling, whatsoever. This number rises if children who received minimal education are included. Not only does this have negative psychological effects, but it effects the conditions they live in. Children will often continue working in similar conditions throughout their lives, without the opportunity for self betterment or even schooling. The education, or lack thereof, given to the laborers will force the workers into lower paying jobs, forcing their children into similar child labor, due to the child trying to support their family; these situations perpetuate poverty (Gamble). When discussing the topic of poverty it is often referred to as a cycle, which often perpetuates itself. A child is forced into working at a cocoa farm to help their impoverished family produce income, the child works there for most of their life, they make little to no money, and can’t continue their education due to the lack of money and the psychological trauma and physical trauma they have sustained, This child, or adult at this point in time, will often have another child, who is forced into working at a cocoa farm to help his impoverished family produce an income. This cycle continuously repeats itself. One of the biggest factor which perpetuates the cycle is the laborer being stuck in a low paying job. The industry, as a whole, has done little to stop the human trafficking, even though the annually profits reach around $60-billion, which could easily pay the farmers a living wage, ending the cycle of poverty and hindering the trafficking (Child). The practice of child slavery or labor has lead to the perpetuation of the cycle of poverty and will continue to have a negative effect on these children for many years to come .
The world’s hunger for chocolate has forced the chocolate industry into abducting and tricking children into slavery and labor to help fix this insatiable desire. Most of the world’s chocolate originates from the child laborers, who risked life and limb to obtain the cocoa, working on cocoa farms in Western Africa. These cocoa farms in Ghana, Mali, and Burkina Faso, are the main suppliers to the companies Hershey's, Nestlé, and Mars, which accounts for seventy percent of the chocolate industry (Child). The industry is only as strong as the consumer makes it; choosing to buy from companies who don’t use child labor chocolate will either push the industry into changing their policies or will drive the industry out of business. The long term effects, stemming from their engagement with the industry, can be catastrophic. The results of being a child slave, or laborer, in the chocolate industry, can affect their mental health and encourage the continuation of the cycle of poverty.