It has probably been many years since you were truly scared on Halloween. But what’s genuinely frightening is chocolate. Not because it makes you fat — or is “sinful”, a weird pseudoerotic marketing gambit I’ve never exactly understood — but because almost half of it, according to the Organic Consumers’ Association (OCA), is produced on West African plantations, where some 284,000 children are working under dangerous conditions, or have been trafficked. Obviously, giving Western children candy that has been made by enslaved African children is horrifying and twisted, if you stop to think about it even for a moment. But this doesn’t mean you have to be the neighborhood Grinch this Halloween; the OCA has some fun suggestions. You can order Fair Trade chocolate (again, trick-or-treat sized) for your neighborhood trick-or-treaters. You can also host an anti-slavery house party to distribute trick-or-treat sized Fair Trade chocolates. If you do this, let the OCA know by emailing [email protected]; that helps the organizers to publicize this timely seasonal campaign.
