The Dark Side of Chocolate

The documentary is all about the exploitation and slave-trading of African children to harvest
chocolate or cacao for the benefit of others. Based on what I have watched, there are four
personas that have an obligation to those children involved in the documentary 1) Their
parents whom should be the one responsible for their needs and take good care of them; 2)
The state or the government whom is in-charge of knowing this kind of event and also to
prevent or put actions to this kind of exploitation to African children; 3) The supplier whom
should have the knowledge of having child laborers on their plantation and be the one to report
this event to the government to prevent or minimize the exploitation and slave-trading of
African children; and 4) The company whom should be aware of what is happening on their
suppliers side or how do these cacaos shipped to them have been processed (if these were
processed by those workers of the plantation or by those child laborers (smuggled) whom are
deprived of those rights as children of Africa). These four (4) personas I have mentioned who I
consider to have obligations are based on what is my understanding on the documentary. For
me, as per article 1156 states, obligation is a juridical necessity to give, to do or not to do, all
of them (parents, state or government, company and supplier) has this obligation to do which is
to protect the child from exploitation and slave-trading in Africa especially the parents of these
children and also the government or the state who should investigate regarding this matter in
order to stop or lessen this kind of happening. The company who are involved with this matter
should allot some time to investigate or to know if such things are happening on the plantation
where they get their supply because they have signed the Cocoa Protocol in 2001 promising to
work for a total eradication of child labor in the cocoa sector by 2008. These four have civil
obligations because they have a duty to protect the welfare of the children involved and are
liable because they have caused damages to the children involve who are usually 11-to-16years-old but sometimes younger, forced to do hard manual labor a week under hazardous
working conditions, paid nothing, receive no education, barely fed, beaten regularly, and are
often viciously beaten if they try to escape.
As a student who has watched this documentary, I do also have an obligation. As to jurisdiction,
I have no obligation because I am not part of the scope or I am not within the involved place
which is Africa but as a human being who has a well developed conscience, feelings of guilt
and shame leading to remorse, I do have a moral obligation. As to moral obligation per se, I do
consider the right and the wrong. As what I have watched, there is a wrong act done that
caused harm to the children involved. With this, informing my family, friends, colleagues and
other people regarding the documentary I have watched entails a moral duty because I do feel
sorry for those children abused and deprived of their right as children of a state. For me, there

should be a conscientious duty with regards to this situation in order for other people to be
enlightened and speak up their minds as what I have done.