Some GREAT news...

04 March 2009
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Cadbury goes Traffik Free

STOP THE TRAFFIK campaigners around the world are waking up to the news that in summer 2009 Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bars can be part of their diet.

Cadbury have announced today that Cadbury Dairy Milk, their best known product, is to receive Fairtrade certification by late summer 2009.

STOP THE TRAFFIK congratulates Cadbury on this ground breaking decision, which comes two years into the STOP THE TRAFFIK Chocolate Campaign.

Steve Chalke, STOP THE TRAFFIK founder, said, ‘This is a very significant step in our campaign. We congratulate Cadburys on their commitment to justice and now look to their policy being adopted across their entire product range as well as to their lead being followed by other manufacturers. But the STOP THE TRAFFIK Chocolate Campaign marches on. We now call on Mars and other manufacturers to follow Cadbury’s lead and abandon their reliance on the use of cocoa produced through trafficked and exploitative forms of child labour.’

STOP THE TRAFFIK CEO, Ruth Dearnley added, ’Cadbury’s decision demonstrates the power of ordinary consumers to bring about change and freedom. Two years ago, when STOP THE TRAFFIK met with Cadbury we were told that the decision we have witnessed today was impossible and impracticable. This is a victory for every person who has complained, campaigned and spread the message. But most of all it is a victory for every child held in exploitative labour on the cocoa farms of West Africa. However, let us not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - they will not be set free until Mars and Nestle and Lindt and Hershey and all the others have the integrity to put human rights before profit and make similar announcements.’

It has long been known that thousands of children are being trafficked onto cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast and across West Africa to harvest the cocoa that makes the chocolate that the world consumes. Despite the fact that industry committed in 2001 to remove all forms of exploitative child labour from the chocolate supply chain, little progress has been made.

STOP THE TRAFFIK, a global movement against people trafficking founded in 2006, has been calling for individual companies to take responsibility for the chocolate they sell and asking for it to be traffik free.

Today STOP THE TRAFFIK campaigners around the world celebrate that in summer 2009 there will be another traffik free chocolate bar.