A Girl Scout Announces Link to Palm Oil Industry and Child Labor in Girl Scout Cookies

They are two young girls from two different worlds, linked by a global industry that exploits an army of children.

Olivia Chaffin, a girl explorer in rural Tennessee, was a top cake seller in her troop when she first heard that rainforests were being destroyed to make way for ever-growing palm oil plantations. On one of these plantations, a continent away, 10-year-old Ima helped harvest the fruit sold in a dizzying array of products sold by leading Western foods and cosmetics.

Ima is among the estimated tens of thousands of children who often work with their parents in Indonesia and Malaysia, producing 85% of the world’s most consumed vegetable oil. According to an investigation by the Associated Press, most earn little or no pay and are regularly exposed to toxic chemicals and other dangerous conditions. Some never go to school or learn to read and write. Others are smuggled across borders and left vulnerable to trafficking or sexual abuse.

The AP used U.S. customs records and the most recent published data from producers, traders and buyers to track the fruits of their labor from the processing plants where palm kernels were smashed to the supply chains of many popular cereals, sweets and ice creams made for children. sold. by Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and many other leading food companies, including Ferrero – one of the two manufacturers of Girl Scout cookies.

Olivia, who earned a badge for selling more than 600 boxes of cookies, saw palm oil as an ingredient on the back of one of her packages, but was relieved when she saw a green tree logo next to the words ‘certified sustainable’ has. She assumed this meant that Thin Mints and Tagalongs did not harm rainforests, orangutans or the orange-red palm fruit.

But later, the whip-smart 11-year-old saw the word ‘mixed’ on the label and quickly learned that it means exactly what he fears: sustainable palm oil is mixed with oil from unsustainable sources. For her, this means that the cookies she hawks are contaminated.

Moved from fourth grade to work fields

Thousands of miles away in Indonesia, Ima led her math class and dreamed of becoming a doctor. Then her father allowed her school to reach his high company targets on the palm oil plantation where she was born. Instead of attending the fourth grade, she crouches in the incessant heat and snatches up the loose seeds that sow the soil.

She sometimes worked 12 hours a day, wearing only slippers and no gloves, and cried when the razor-sharp nails of the fruit made her hands bloody or scorpions stabbed her fingers. The loads she carried were to one of the mills that fed into the supply chain of Olivia’s cookies.

“I dream one day that I can go back to school,” she told the AP.

Dark spot on $ 65 billion industry

Child labor has long been a dark spot on the $ 65 billion global palm oil industry, which has been identified as a problem by rights groups, the United Nations and the US government.

With little or no access to day care, some young children in both countries follow their parents to the countries. In some cases, an entire family can earn less than a box of $ 5 Girl Scout Do-si-dos a day.

“For 100 years, families have been sitting in a cycle of poverty and know nothing but working on a palm oil plantation,” said researcher Kartika Manurung, who published reports outlining labor issues on Indonesian plantations.

The AP’s investigation into child labor is part of a broader in-depth look at the industry that has also exposed rape, forced labor and slavery. Reporters traversed Malaysia and Indonesia, talking to more than 130 current and former workers – about two dozen of their child laborers – at nearly 25 businesses.

US Customs and Borders in September shipments blocked of palm oil and palm oil products from FGV Holdings Berhad, a major producer in Malaysia, after a wide range of indicators of labor abuse were found, including physical and sexual violence and forced child labor. The Customs Order came a week after the Associated Press investigation exposed a number of labor abuses in the palm oil industry in Malaysia and Indonesia.

“We will again urge the U.S. import community to conduct their due diligence,” said Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office in September, adding that they should look into their palm oil supply chains. “We will also encourage American consumers to ask questions about where their products come from.”

The contaminated palm oil has been traced to the supply chains of the world’s most iconic food and beauty products, including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

1.5 million children in Indonesia alone

Indonesian government officials said they did not know how many children were working in the country’s massive palm oil industry. But the UN’s International Labor Organization estimates 1.5 million children between the ages of 10 and 17 in their agricultural sector. Palm oil is one of the largest crops with about 16 million people employed.

In a much smaller neighboring Malaysia, a newly released government report estimates that more than 33,000 children work in the industry – almost half of them between the ages of 5 and 11. The report does not include the tens of thousands of so-called “stateless” people. directly treat “boys and girls living in the country with parents from border countries.

An official from the Ministry of Plantation and Commodities in Malaysia did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Nageeb Wahab, head of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, took allegations of child labor very seriously and requested that complaints be reported to the authorities. word.

Soes Hindharno, an official from Indonesia’s Manpower Ministry, said he had not received any complaints about child labor taking place in his own country, but said a ministry official overseeing issues concerning women and children it’s a growing concern.

Many producers, Western buyers and banks belong to the 4,000-member Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a global association that gives a green stamp of approval to those committed to dealing with palm oil obtained as ethical. The RSPO has a system to address grievances, including allegations of labor abuse. But of the nearly 100 complaints detected in the past two decades in the two Southeast Asian countries, only a handful mentioned children.

Dan Strechay, the RSPO’s global director for outreach and engagement, said the association has started working with UNICEF and others to teach members about what child labor entails.

KitKats, Oreos, Cap’n Crunch and more

Palm oil contains about half of the products on supermarket shelves and in almost three out of every four cosmetic brands, and many children are introduced to it the day they are born – it is a primary fat in baby formula. As they grow, it’s present in many of their favorite foods: it’s in their Pop-Tarts and Cap’n Crunch cereal, Oreo cookies, KitKat candy bars, Magnum ice cream, donuts and even bubble gum.

Olivia is not the first Girl Scout to raise questions about the way palm oil gets into cookies. More than a decade ago, two girls in a Michigan troop campaigned against its use, leading the Girl Scouts of the United States to join the RSPO and agree to use sustainable palm oil, and the green tree logo added to its approximately 200 million boxes of cookies. , which brings in nearly $ 800 million annually.

The Girl Scouts did not respond to questions from the AP and addressed reporters to the two bakers who make the cookies – Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky and ABC Bakers in Virginia. The companies and their parent corporations, Ferrero and Weston Foods, respectively, also did not comment on the findings. Both said they are committed to obtaining only certified sustainable palm oil.

When contacted by the AP, other companies reaffirmed their support for human rights for all employees. Some say they rely on their suppliers to meet industry standards and comply with local laws. If evidence of misconduct is found, some have said they would immediately sever ties with producers.

“We strive to prevent and address the problem of child labor wherever it occurs in our supply chain,” said Nestle, manufacturer of KitKat candy bars. And Kellogg’s, the parent company of Pop-Tarts, said it was committed to working with suppliers to obtain ‘fully traceable palm oil’. Mondelez, which owns Oreo cookies, or Cap’n Crunch parent company PepsiCo, did not respond.

Now 14, Olivia, who lives in Jonesborough, Tennessee, has started a petition to have palm oil removed from Girl Scout cookies. And she stopped selling it.

“I thought Girl Scouts would be supposed to make the world a better place,” she said. “But it does not make the world better at all.”