UK media outlet faces backlash over ‘recycled’ report on children working on cocoa farms in Ghana

Social media users have "descended" on a Western media outlet named MetroUK over its reports of the use of children on cocoa farms.

The headline of the report read: "Chocolate giant Mars ‘using cocoa harvested by children as young as five’"

This did not auger well for some users who tagged the report as a "recycled" news item that keeps repeating itself.

One user @stashafful wrote: "Broo. These are kids helping their parents out on a farm."

Here are some of the comments below:

Doesn’t this come out every year?

— guh-tar (@guh_tar) December 3, 2023

They could say they are children in the family supporting family business?

— Martin (@martindbold) December 3, 2023

No shit

Here is tomorrows head line "Water is wet"

— kyal (@kyalXIII) December 2, 2023

What sort of rubbish allegation is that? You guys out there have disrespected Ghana too much. Leave the company alone.

— 3b3fa???????? (@Danquakkk) December 3, 2023

So they should be 30 years old b4 their parents take them to the cocoa farms they will be inheriting ..

A engineer who takes his son to the shop is impacting knowledge but for an African farmer it is child labour

— aWho cares (@mynameis_kofi) December 3, 2023

Chocolate company Mars has been found to be using cocoa beans harvested by children as young as five in Ghana

This is despite the company’s pledge to protect children in its supply childrenhttps://t.co/MDkpWoX1Cx

— Metro (@MetroUK) December 1, 2023

Read the MetroUk's full report below

Chocolate company Mars has been found to be using cocoa beans harvested by children in Ghana, a report has been found.

Children as young as five were revealed to be working on farms which supply the confectionary giant.

This is despite the company’s pledge to protect children in its supply chain.

Footage captured by CBS News shows youngsters carrying machetes into the fields and using them to hack open cocoa pods.

One child nearly takes off his finger using the sharp tool.

Mars says they have a monitoring system to keep children in schools, but copies of the list found many of the children were instead working.

Munira, 15, is listed as being in school but is working in the fields.

She said she was visited by supervisors last year who gave her backpack and school books with the phrase, ‘I am a child, I play, I go to school’.

In the blistering heat, CBS News found children in Ghana as young as 5 years old using machetes nearly as big as themselves to harvest the cocoa beans that end up in some of America's most-loved chocolates.

Our team traveled across Ghana's remote cocoa belt to visit small subsistence farms that supply the U.S. chocolate giant Mars, which produces candies including M&Ms and Snickers.

We found children working at each one of the farms. despite the company's vow to have systems in place to eradicate child labor in its supply chain by 2025.

‘I feel sad. I want to be, like, a medical doctor, but my family doesn’t have money for school,’ said Munira.

She said her family were only able to harvest one 140-pound bag of quality cocoa – earning them just $115.

One field supervisor admitted to ‘making up lists’.

He added: ‘I can say on authority that almost every data, almost every data is cooked.’

SSD/NOQ