Fair Trade is a regulation that certifies that all labor workers get paid a fair amount of money based on the time they've worked and/or the amount of goods they've produced.

In terms of the chocolate industry, this regulation seems like the most sensible. Since ridding something like slavery takes such a long time, it is important that people take the correct steps along the way to eventually get rid of child slavery altogether.

While most chocolate companies have not taken Fair Trade into account of their sales, there are some that have. Art Bars, Nirvana Chocolates, Malagasy, El Rey, and many more are only a few companies who have gone through the process of making sure their chocolate comes from producers who are under the Fair Trade regulation. To show consumers they do not buy their products from cocoa produced by slaves, companies put stamps on the wrappers of chocolate bars that say "Fair Trade."

So what about larger, well-known chocolate companies like Hershey's, Ghirardelli and Nestle? The truth is that implementing Fair Trade would affect their sales. It is the pure fact that chocolate produced by workers under the Fair Trade law is much more costly than having it produced by slaves. Under such high competition, it is difficult for billion dollar chocolate companies to take such a risk.

(To get a feeling of the number of chocolate companies that have implemented Fair Trade, click here).

Although there hasn't been significant improvement to the issue of cocoa-producing child slaves in Africa, there are still things being done to help the cause. The United States government, for example, pledged $17 million to help the cause earlier this year in September while The Labor Department pledged $10 million toward building new schools in Africa to make living conditions on families easier. Their hope for building new schools is that families won't have to pay as much for school which would increase the amount of money in their pockets, making the familial need for putting their children into slavery unnecessary.

There are websites online at which chocolate lovers can buy chocolate. Interestingly enough, there is an individual tab along the left-hand side of the page that says, "Fair Trade Chocolate." Clearly, people are doing more and more to promote Fair Trade and demote the use of cocoa beans produced by child slaves.
See the site: www.chocolate.com.