08/03/2026
"The public is being duped. They have no idea of this dirty, rotten little secret," says human rights lawyer Etelle Higonnet, who has spent years investigating child labor and deforestation in West Africa's cocoa industry, in a quote to the ABC.
Four Corners (ABC Investigations) just published an investigation of what it calls the chocolate industry's "dirty secret": child labor in cocoa farming. Reporters traveled deep into Ghana's cocoa-growing regions and obtained footage of children as young as 10 doing hazardous work during school hours, work that keeps them out of school or exposes them to machetes and pesticide spraying, practices illegal in Ghana.
Yet the cocoa these children help produce can end up in chocolate bars carrying sustainability claims on the wrapper. The promises of the multi-billion-dollar global chocolate industry don't always match the reality on the ground, the report says. Farmer poverty and weak certification schemes drive that gap.
95% of farmers aren't earning a living income, says Issifu Issaka, General Secretary of the Ghana Cooperative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Association. One estimate breaks down an $8 block of Cadbury Dairy Milk: the farmer who grew the cocoa gets just 72 cents.
All the while, some of the largest global cocoa companies, like Cadbury owner Mondelēz, pulled in more than $50 billion in revenue last year, with almost $20 billion of that from chocolate alone.
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For decades, major chocolate companies have pledged to eradicate child labour. Four Corners discovered that in Ghana, the promises don't always match the reality.
