Nestlé child slaves win right to U.S court case

Well it's no secret that Nestlé are not the world leaders in human rights, they have made it very apparent that they care more about the few bucks in your back pocket rather than helping out a fellow human being. So I was very happy to hear this news from True Activist, it means that finally, some of the human beings who feel the horrific effects from Nestlés greed can get some form of Justice, and perhaps they can help prevent it from happening in the future.

“Plaintiffs, aged 12 to 14 when first forced to work as child slaves, had to work 12 to 14 hour days with no pay. They often worked with guns pointed at them, and were given only the bare minimum of food scraps,” write their lawyers in the complaint. “Plaintiffs were locked in small rooms at night with other child slaves so they could not escape the plantations. They were whipped and beaten by the guards and overseers when the guards felt they were not working quickly or adequately.”

Apparently the slave trade for Nestlé scandal started 13 years a go and they made a deal to end it by 2005, obviously Nestlé did not make this target and a second complaint was filed in 2009. The problem was that you could not prosecute a corporation for over-sea abuses and Côte d’Ivoire is notoriously corrupt.

An amended complaint was filed on July 22, 2009, accusing the three companies of being complicit in the slave trade: Cargill from Minneapolis which buys cocoa beans and operates a cocoa processing plant in Côte d’Ivoire; ADM of Decatur, Illinois, which imports cocoa and manufactures chocolate-based products in factories in California; and Nestlé from Switzerland, which markets chocolate products in the U.S.

The lawsuit hit a roadblock in 2010 when U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson dismissed the case saying that U.S. laws did not allow corporations to be sued in for abuses abroad. However, in April last year, when the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case against Royal Dutch Petroleum for human rights abuses in Nigeria, the court ruled that lawsuits against corporations for abuses overseas could be brought in U.S. courts in specific circumstances. Based on that ruling, Dorothy Nelson and Kim Wardlaw, two appeals court judges, ruled on December 19 that the plaintiffs should be allowed to show that the defendants fulfilled the “actus reus” standard for aiding and abetting a crime.

I sincerely hope that this is the first step to ending child slavery, most of which is funded by us, the people who buy products sold by companies like Nike and Nestlé.

Remember to think about where your money is going, there are apps to help you find out, slavery exists because we allow it.

Mettā ~

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In America Nestlé's means big money and in America money talks everything else walks. If anything happens to them it will just be a slap on the wrist. But it wouldn't be a shock if a lot of these kids were to wind up dead then the case will be dropped.

reply to post by iRoyalty


I wonder just how much of that Chinese garbage we the consumer purchase have a tale to tell?

Slavery never ended, and is more than likely growing. It may have left America, but it found a new home in Africa, India, Asia, South America, Etc.... It doesnt take a scientist to figure out why most of the US corporations left America in search of Cheap labor, most cheap labor consist of villages rounded up at gun point and forced to work for cents, or just a bowl of food. It a shame that these countries let this kind of work continue, and it will continue, until the person buying the item has a moral change of heart, and understands where this stuff is made. Diamonds, clothing, food, precious metals, ore, oil, minerals, etc......... our way of life, doesnt come cheap, and someone has to work long hard hours to make what the west wants. It an unfortunate revolving door from hell.

reply to post by Glassbender777


Not caring where our goods come from as long as they are cheap and easily available will come back to haunt us. I just hope when it comes time to pay the piper we will still feel it was worth it.

Greed has no love for life, only opportunity. We are all expendable. Even if you luck through life without being scathed, your family, friends or neighbors may not be as lucky.

If you want to continue to go through life with the illusion that it doesn't concern you, don't look too closely at what you are eating. If you haven't grown it, raised it, and killed it yourself, you are likely not eating what you think you paid for.

He who controls the food and water, controls everything, including you.

reply to post by iRoyalty


Nestle gets my vote for the 2nd most evil company in the world (we all know whom is no 1, don't we?)... my opinion if they could make an extra lira on taking out a wholesome ingredient and replacing it with transfat they would and likely do... also, it is interesting that they purvey the instant Nescafe with hydrogenated coconut oil as the instant milk on the rest of the world and sell the real Aribica bean expresso in their home of Switzerland... hmmm

reply to post by Glassbender777


Yes I think this is the unfortunate truth, if companies can turn a profit by using shady providers legally, then why wouldn't they?

reply to post by iRoyalty


With have to find a productive and effective way to take profit out of greedy and unshady practices.

We think we are saving money. We are fooling ourselves, in the end we pay dearly for allowing these activities to continue.

reply to post by SLAYER69



Quite a lot of what we get these days is made of slave labor; whether it's China or Bangledesh, or Honduras, you can pretty much bet the working conditions and pay will be horrifically terrible.

I just got through mentioning in another thread my belief that the super wealthy, usually those involved in big businesses like that, get so wealthy because of the fact that they take advantage of people, break the rules, etc. The ONLY reason they do this is because of their profit margins. It really makes me wonder just how far these types of people will go to make money, or preserve the money they're already making. They don't care about anything else, who they hurt, etc, just about the money.

So not only is there a disconnect between the humanity of the rich and poor, there is a moral difference as well, in many cases at least. So maybe class warfare has a moral side to it. These types of wealthy people deserve much less than they have in my opinion. The old American Dream nonsense is ridiculous. These people don't get rich by working hard, they do it by taking advantage of others.

How many large corporations pay their US employees next to nothing? Not even enough to live on. And to make matters worse, they will intentionally make certain these employees NEVER reach 40 hours per week. In fact, I have seen people get in trouble, probably even fired in some instances, when they work 40 or more hours, because then the company has to pay them more, and give them benefits like insurance, since they are full time. Yet people still want to complain about Obamacare?

The system is broken. The wealthy are EXPLOITING their employees, yet people don't want to blame them. It is preposterous and ingnorant in my opinion. Most of these companies would not hire US workers at all if they didn't have to. But since they must, as they have stores, like Wal-Mart, in the US, they try to pay as little as possible.

And why is this? Because as I said, it increases the amount of money they have. They would still make a profit if they paid better, but they wouldn't make as much. Yet the owners are BILLIONAIRES. And they still want to be ruthless and accumulate more. There is no excuse, and society should not allow it. Not when there are people in this country, and across the globe, who are dying because they have nothing to eat. Like I said, a broken system. And like I also said, they are making this money by exploiting others, not through their own hard work.

reply to post by JiggyPotamus


And we can stop this. Chocolate is not a necessary staple for life. The power lies in where you spend your money.

Mmmm ruthless capitalism. Their profits are too great to be concerned with the welfare of child slaves.

I like my Hot Cocoa child labor free with tiny marshmellows.

All these posts really disturb me. We know its corrupt but think its only probable for horrendous crimes that are illegal in all nations on earth to go unchecked.

In reality, everyone of them needs to be in prison, and people need to voice this repeatedly.