Chocolate, Oxfam and women’s rights

On the topical subject of food supply chains – chains is perhaps the word to contemplate.

I was hovering at the pud section in the supermarket; the woman next to me was searching for her favourite, so I helped, helpfully. We couldn’t find it.

Try something else, I suggested, and indicated my current craze in the chocolate pud section of the cooler.

Ah no, she answered, wistfully, I have given up chocolate.

I thought of waistlines, of Lent.

But no, it wasn’t either of those. She asked if I had seen Oxfam’s current campaign for women’s rights.

Nope.

I have now.

Oxfam America has set up a Behind the Brands scorecard – and it shows major gaps in the policies of the “Big 10” food and beverage companies when it comes to protecting and promoting women’s rights.

As far as Oxfam is concerned, substantial evidence shows that women get a raw deal in food and beverage company supply chains and companies are failing to adequately address the challenges.

An Oxfam investigation into how women fare in cocoa supply chains in four countries revealed stories of neglect, inequality and unfair treatment.

Although they do not directly employ or control them, Mars, Mondelez International (formerly Kraft) and Nestlé, three of the most powerful chocolate producers in the world, must help lead an effort to ring about equality for women cocoa producers and women workers throughout food and beverage company supply chains.

In 2012, Snickers and M&Ms together generated an estimated USD7 billion in sales for Mars, and Nestlé’s KitKat is today available to shoppers in 72 countries.

Yet despite these successes, wealth has not trickled down to the millions of farmers and laborers who supply food and beverage companies with their most precious ingredients.

And in spite of global progress in reducing the number of hungry people in the world today, most people who work along the cocoa supply chain continue to live in poverty, and malnutrition in cocoa producing areas of the world is rampant.

Women are often the primary target of company marketing campaigns – yet women working in cocoa fields and processing plants suffer substantial discrimination and inequality.

And while women increasingly occupy positions of power in food and beverage company headquarters, women working in company supply chains in developing countries continue to be denied anything in the way of advances in wealth, status or opportunity.

Agnes Gabriel, a 37-year-old migrant worker living in Ayetoro-Ijesa, Nigeria, gets paid USD3 a day for her work on a cocoa farm.

Her male counterparts make more than twice that amount.

Arti, a laborer at a cocoa exporting factory in Makassar, Indonesia, says she is made to work without a contract so she does not receive the legal rights that workers should get under Indonesian law, such as Worker’s Social Security.

The money she does make is less than the minimum wage and does not stretch to cover the cost of food, water and her rent and that she is called “an animal” by her supervisor.

And only men work at the cocoa processing factory in Makassar.

All the female workers were laid off after a few demanded equal treatment and pay – such as wage increases and worker protections guaranteed under Indonesian employment law, such as menstruation leave.

Menstruation leave gives women the option of two days leave per month, and is aimed at those doing physically demanding jobs where long hours and overtime is the norm, such as factory workers.

Many of these women suffer from anaemia and especially during their periods they are particularly vulnerable and physically weak.

Oxfam recently visited more than a dozen cocoa producing communities in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Indonesia and Brazil to interview women cocoa growers and hear first-hand accounts of the issues they face.

Based on that information and the data gathered for Oxfam’s Behind the Brands scorecard, along with Oxfam’s years of experience in cocoa supply chains, they are urging three of the world’s largest and most powerful food and beverage companies – Mars, Mondelez International and Nestlé – companies which control more than 40 per cent of global chocolate market share – to lead a more aggressive effort to support and protect the rights of the millions of women worldwide who grow the cocoa essential for their products.

Investing in women is good for the chocolate companies and good for cocoa communities because it helps to increase yields and promote food security.

It is also – simply – the right thing to do.

More than 5.5 million small-scale farmers currently supply 90 per cent of the cocoa used by major food and beverage companies. Most smallholders and cocoa workers live below the poverty line

And, sadly, the bad news does not end there.

Millions of women cocoa farmers and laborers worldwide also face rampant inequality and discrimination.

Women working on cocoa farms usually get paid less than men, if they get paid at all for their work.

Women cocoa farmers rarely own the land they farm, even if they work the same plot their entire lives.

Many women working on cocoa farms face problems like harassment or discrimination while at work have no way to complain or fight back.

Women cocoa farmers don’t have the same opportunities to attend agricultural or financial training as men.

And because of a lack of capital and land, women cocoa farmers struggle to get loans or credit, no matter how hard they work.

This severely limits women’s ability to purchase fertilizers, better performing seeds, or irrigation systems which could help increase yields.

Improving working conditions and pay along the cocoa supply chain could impact millions of women and their families around the world.

But companies are not doing nearly enough to help address these issues, even though small changes like guaranteeing women a fair price for cocoa – while costing companies very little – could have a profound affect on global poverty and hunger.

So Oxfam is also calling on Mars, Mondelez and Nestlé to lead the way in forging equality for women in the cocoa industry and the entire supply chain.

Specifically that they should take three important steps to root out gender inequality in their supply chains.

Step One: “Know and show” how women are treated in their value chains.

Step Two: Commit to transparently adopt a “plan of action” to increase opportunities for women and address inequalities in women’s pay and working conditions along the supply chain.

Step Three: Engage with and influence other powerful and relevant public and private actors to address gender inequality.

After Lent comes Easter, and it would nice to know we will be able to indulge our very spoilt selves with a nice clean clear conscience.