The Dark Side of Chocolate

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Not everything's better with chocolate...
"When you eat chocolate, you eat my flesh."[1]
Amadou, a former child slave.

The Dark Side of Chocolate is a 2010 Documentary film exposing the widespread but strangely unknown-to-the-public use of child slaves in the cocoa industry.

Watch it here:


Tropes used in The Dark Side of Chocolate include:
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive / Villain with Good Publicity: Those who support this practice include such companies as Hershey's, Nestle, and M&M Mars. These three in particular are giants in the industry.
  • Company Conspiracy:
    • There was a move in June 28, 2001 by U.S. House of Representatives to label chocolate "slave-free" that was shot down by the chocolate industry.
    • Considering the scale of the problem and the fact that is been going on over ten years yet so few people seems to know about this, it's hard to believe this is not going on.
  • Made a Slave
  • Never My Fault: This is basically what the chocolate companies self-defense amounts to. They claim they have no control over the cocoa farms they buy from.
  • Slave Liberation:
    • This is basically what the documentary hopes to accomplish.
    • They rescued a little girl with wounds on her legs, among others.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: More than 1.8 million children in West Africa are involved in growing cocoa. The children work hard, hazardous work with no pay and no medical attention. The exceptions are Fair Trade Certified chocolate, some companies, and organic chocolate, though the latter is probably only because at the time of writing no organic cocoa products are made from Ivory Coast.
  • Would Hurt a Child
  1. This quote is not in the film.