A Girl Scout highlights the link with the palm oil industry and child labor in Girl Scout cookies

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

Olivia Chaffin, an explorer of rural Tennessee, was the best cookie seller in her troop when she learned that rainforests were being destroyed to give way to expanding palm oil plantations. In one of these plantations on the continent, ten-year-old Ima helped harvest the fruit that opens in a dizzying range of products sold by major Western food and cosmetic brands.

Ima is among the tens of thousands of children who often work alongside their parents in Indonesia and Malaysia, who supply 85% of the world’s most consumed vegetable oil. According to research by the Associated Press, most people earn little or no salary and are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals and other dangerous conditions. Some never go to school or learn to read and write. Others are smuggled into borders and left vulnerable to trafficking or sexual abuse.

The PA used U.S. customs records and more recently published data from producers, traders, and buyers to track the fruits of its labor from processing factories where palm kernels were crushed to supply chains. of popular cereals, sweets and ice cream for popular children. by Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and many other leading food companies, including Ferrero, one of the two Girl Scout cookie makers.

Olivia, who earned a badge for selling more than 600 boxes of cookies, had seen palm oil as an ingredient on the back of one of her packages, but was relieved to see a green tree logo next to it. of the words “sustainable certificate”. He assumed that this meant that his thin, tagalong minds did not harm the rainforests, the orangutans, or those who harvested the orange-red fruits of the palm.

But later, the smart 11-year-old ugly saw the word “mixed” on the label and quickly learned that it meant exactly what she feared: sustainable palm oil had been mixed with oil from unsustainable sources. For her, that meant the cookies she was selling were contaminated.

Fourth grade treaty in labor camps

Thousands of miles away, in Indonesia, Ima ran her math class and dreamed of becoming a doctor. Her father then let her drop out of school to help achieve the goals of her high company in the palm oil plantation where she was born. Instead of attending fourth grade, he squatted in the relentless heat, snatching the large liberated ones that were pouring on the ground.

Sometimes he worked 12 hours a day, only wearing flip-flops and no gloves, crying when the sharp spikes of the fruit bleed his hands or the scorpions pricked his fingers. The loads she was carrying went to one of the mills that fed Olivia’s cookie supply chain.

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

Dark spot in the $ 65 billion industry

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

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

“For 100 years, families have been trapped in a cycle of poverty and know nothing more than working on a palm oil plantation,” said researcher Kartika Manurung, who has published reports detailing labor problems in the plantations in Indonesia.

PA research on child labor is part of a broader look at the industry that also exposed rape, forced labor trafficking, and slavery. Reporters toured Malaysia and Indonesia, talking to more than 130 current and former workers (about two dozen of them child workers) about 25 companies.

U.S. Customs and Borders in September blocked submissions palm oil and palm oil products from FGV Holdings Berhad, a major Malaysian producer, after finding a wide range of indicators of labor abuse, including physical and sexual violence and forced child labor . The Customs Order came a week after the Associated Press investigation revealed a litany of labor abuses in the palm oil industry in Malaysia and Indonesia.

“We would again urge the U.S. importing community to do their due diligence,” said Brenda Smith, executive deputy commissioner at the U.S. Customs and Border Trade Office, adding that they should look into their palm oil supply chains. “We would also encourage American consumers to ask questions about where their products come from.”

Contaminated palm oil was located in the supply chains of the most iconic food and cosmetics companies on the planet, including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble.

1.5 million children in Indonesia alone

Indonesian government officials said they do not know how many children work in the country’s massive palm oil industry. But the UN International Labor Organization has estimated that 1.5 million children between the ages of 10 and 17 will work in its agricultural sector. Palm oil is one of the largest crops, employing about 16 million people.

In neighboring, much smaller Malaysia, a report recently released by the government estimated that more than 33,000 children in the industry worked there, nearly half between the ages of 5 and 11. This report did not directly address the tens of thousands of so-called “stateless” boys and girls living in the country with parents who came from neighboring countries.

An official from the Ministry of Industries and Commodities of Malaysia Plantations did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Nageeb Wahab, head of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, described the child labor allegations very highly. serious and urged complaints to the authorities.

Soes Hindharno, an Indonesian Ministry of Labor official, said he had not received any complaints about child labor occurring in his own country, but a ministry official overseeing issues related to women and childhood described it as an area of ​​growing concern.

Many Western producers, buyers and banks belong to the 4,000-member roundtable on sustainable palm oil, a global partnership that provides an ecological seal of approval to those who are committed to treating palm oil that has been certificate of ethical origin. The RSPO has established a system for dealing with complaints, including allegations of labor abuse. But of the nearly 100 complaints listed on its case tracker in the last decade in the two Southeast Asian countries, only a handful have mentioned children.

Dan Strechay, RSPO’s director of global outreach and engagement, said the association has begun working with UNICEF and others to educate members about what constitutes child labor.

KitKats, Oreos, Cap’n Crunch and more

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

Olivia isn’t the first Girl Scout to ask questions about how palm oil gets into cookies. More than a decade ago, two girls from a Michigan troop campaigned against its use, which led U.S. Girl Scouts to join RSPO and agree to start using sustainable palm oil, adding the green tree logo to its approximately 200 million cookie boxes, which contribute nearly $ 800 million annually.

The Girl Scouts did not respond to questions from the AP, directing reporters to the two bakers who make the cookies: Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky and ABC Bakers in Virginia. These companies and their parent companies, Ferrero and Weston Foods respectively, also did not comment on the findings. But they both said they were committed to getting only certified sustainable palm oil.

When the PA contacted them, other companies asserted their support for human rights for all workers, and some stressed that they rely on their suppliers to meet industry standards and comply with local laws. If evidence of wrongful acts is found, some said they would immediately sever ties with the producers.

“Our goal is to prevent and address the problem of child labor wherever it occurs in our supply chain,” said Nestle, maker of KitKat candy bars. And Kellogg’s, the parent company of Pop-Tarts, said it was committed to working with suppliers to get “fully traceable palm oil.” There was no response from Mondelez, owner of Oreo cookies, or from Cap’n Crunch’s parent company, PepsiCo.

Now 14, Olivia, who lives in Jonesborough, Tennessee, has filed a petition to remove palm oil from Girl Scout cookies. And he has stopped selling them.

“I thought Girl Scouts should try to make the world a better place,” she said. “But that’s not at all making the world better.”