In the U.S., Girl Scouts discover that cookies dedicated to their organization contain palm oil that is derived from child exploitation. The scandal, involving Ferrero and Weston Foods (Canada), emerges from a report by AP, Associated Press. (1)
Palm oil and child exploitation, Associated Press report
Journalists from the largest international news agency launched an investigation from customs documents and reports on the trade in palm oil grown in Malaysiaand Indonesia, which express 85 percent of its global production.
The survey continued in production countries, where local correspondents interviewed more than 130 workers. Also collecting testimonies from activists, teachers, priests, trade unionists and government officials. What emerges is the constant exploitation of children (as young as 5 years old), taken out of school to help families meet the onerous harvesting targets imposed by plantation masters. In addition to very serious crimes such as rape and trafficking of undocumented minors, which are in addition to land robbery (
land grabbing
), burning and deforestation.
The Girl Scout Betrayed
AP presents reportage through the lives of tough, differently fortunate girls. The first is Olivia Chaffin, a 14-year-old girl scout from the United States. Curious, bright, courageous. So good that she won an award as the best seller of cookies custom-made for Girl Scouts just for the purpose of collecting donations.
A year ago the young woman learned that palm oil is responsible for crimes against local peoples, deforestation and genocide of orangutans. Only to discover, upon reading the labels of the Girl Scout cookies she sold, that palm is found there as well.
A scouting petition
However, the young scout, at first relieved to read the claim‘certified sustainable‘ next to a green tree logo, noticed the word‘mixed‘. Only to discover its fraudulent meaning on the web. It is a mixture of palm oil, certified as sustainable and not.‘Which means that only 1 percent of palm oil could be certified sustainable,’ AP points out.
Thus began the letters to the head of the Girl Scouts of the USA, asking how the palm oil in the organization’s cookies is selected. Along with 543 other team members, Olivia stopped selling those cookies and launched a petition to remove the tropical fat from Girl Scout Cookies.
‘I’m not just a little girl who can’t do anything about it. Children can change the world. And we will!’
One fat, two fates
In Indonesia, another young woman, Ima, was instead forced to drop out of school to work on an oil palm plantation. Putting aside the ambition to become a mathematician.
‘Sometimes she worked 12-hour days, wearing only flip-flops and no gloves, crying when razor-sharp spikes bloodied her hands or when the
scorpions were stinging her fingers. The loads he carried, sometimes so heavy that he lost his balance, went to one of the same mills that fed Olivia”s cookie supply chain.
This injustice affects 1.5 million children between the ages of 10 and 17, according to theInternational Labor Organization (ILO). In oil palm harvesting, as previously reported in Amnesty International‘s report on Indonesia, but also in hazelnut harvesting in Turkey, as shown by the BBC in 2019.
Injustice and profit
The manufacturers of the American Girl Scout cookies are Ferrero (with headquarters in Luxembourg) and Canada’s Weston Foods. The two giants‘did not comment on the issue of child labor, but both said they are committed to sourcing only certified sustainable palm oil,’ AP reports. (2)
Like them, Nestlé, Unilever, Mondelez and a host of others are attending the banquet. Including the governments of producing countries. Profits dominate all thinking and motivate all crime. Meanwhile, in those faraway countries‘in some cases, an entire family in a day’s work can earn less than the $5 that a box of Girl Scout cookies costs.’
Buycott!
Boycotting palm oil is an act of social justice. Conscious choice, every day, easier than you think. Here’s how.
Marta Strinati and Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Robin McDowell, Margie Mason. Child labor in palm oil industry linked to Girl Scout cookies. AP News. 30.12.20, https://apnews.com/article/palm-oil-forests-indonesia-scouts-83b01f2789e9489569960da63b2741c4
(2) Dario Dongo. Palm oil, Ferrero, sustainability. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 9.7.18, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/olio-di-palma-ferrero-sostenibilità
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
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