The chocolate Industry needs more policing

83 billion dollars
Is the turnover each year
From the chocolate business
And that is very clear
Most cacao comes from Africa
The Ivory Coast to where
Most of the corporate buyers go
And it just does not feel fair

There is not enough soul-searching
The responsibility
For getting children out of the trade
And back into schools to me
Shows there is disinterest
A certain meanness here
Its wicked to get children working
With the aid of fear

The profit margins clearly
Are high and therefore we
Just must ensure the workers
Get their pay cheques constantly
Knowing children are working
But forgetting to write that down
Actually shows some villainy
Abounds and tends to drown
out the true endeavour
Child labour girls and boys
Kidnapped from their villages
With quite a lot of noise

People know but look the other way
It semms to me
Which lets off all these corporates
Whose profits seem to be
Through the roof and still they
Covetously display
A scandalous performance
On ethics come what may

Children do love chocolate
In the west most peoplec eat
about 11 kilos a year
So no mean feat
Girls and boys are about the same
And of the total sales
The europeans eat half
Of all thats produced
Which kind of pales

Into some significance
When In India they eat
Only 1/2 a pound a year
And in China the elite
Perhaps half of that
So its the USA and Europe
Tnat are what this trades about
And the children of Africa are suffering
And thats without a doubt

Generally the chocolate people
At trade shows in Cologne
Think child labour isnt really very much
The bone
Of contention there for me
Is its all about high sales
And there are so many children
Slave children and their tales

Are very grim and frightening
The immorality
Remember these are innocent souls
Who are corrupted actually
Transgressions of this magnitude
Ought be policed and show
Its base line criminality
And consumers ought to know

Wide eyed saintly cherubs
Taken far away
To work as slaves in hot plantations
Forever without pay
Back breaking work
The bruises the wounds
That manifest
And spraying organophosphates
That is surely going to test.