Action Corps

Pressure is on Mondelez to stand with women farmers

Yesterday Oxfam Action Corps and staff - joined by the Easter bunny - delivered Easter eggs filled with signatures from more than 67,000 petitions to Mondelēz International headquarters near Chicago, and offices outside of Seattle and New York City.

In a week that will see seventy-one million pounds of chocolate sold for Easter, Oxfam is accelerating its campaign targeting the world’s biggest buyer of cocoa, Mondelēz International, to address unequal pay, poverty and hunger that women farmers who supply cocoa for their products experience.

We also made it on TV! Sorry for the less than stellar quality, but still something to celebrate! ABC Chicago came out to Deerfield, IL to speak with the Action Corps and ended up showing a 20 second segment.

You can help by spreading the word to friends:

- By Twitter:  Love #Easter chocolate? Go #BehindTheBrands & tell chocolate co #Mondelez: respect women cocoa farmers! http://bit.ly/WWb80n 

- By Facebook: Do you love chocolate?  This Easter, Americans will spend more than $2 billion on candy. Yet most women cocoa farmers earn less than $2 a day. Tell chocolate giant Mondelez to follow Mars and Nestle, and respect women cocoa farmers! http://bit.ly/WWb80n    
                                                                                                                                           
Chocolate companies produce ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies every year. Mondelēz is the biggest global buyer of cocoa and wields immense influence over the chocolate industry and the lives of people who grow cocoa.

A recent investigation by Oxfam showed that some women in cocoa supply chains are paid less than half as much as their male counterparts, earning just 2-3 dollars a day for their labor. In one cocoa processing plant in Indonesia a worker told investigators that all of the women employees were fired after they demanded basic rights.

Thank you for spreading the word!