Nestlé admits slave labour risk on Brazil coffee plantations

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Source: The Guardian

Nestlé admits slave labour risk on Brazil coffee plantations

Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts say beans from Brazilian plantations
using slave labour may have ended up in their coffee

Kate Hodal
Wednesday 2 March 2016 21.15 GMT

Two of the world’s biggest coffee companies, Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, admit that beans from Brazilian plantations using slave labour may have ended up in their coffee because they do not know the names of all the plantations that supply them.

People trafficked to work for little or no pay, and forced to live on rubbish heaps and drink water alongside animals, may have worked on plantations that supply the two companies, according to the media and research centre DanWatch.

The Denmark-based group claims that human rights abuses are rampant across Brazil’s lucrative coffee industry, with hundreds of workers rescued from slavery-like conditions every year.

Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of coffee (pdf), accounting for about one-third of the global market. Yet workers often face debt bondage, non-existent work contracts, exposure to deadly pesticides, lack of protective equipment, and accommodation without doors, mattresses or drinking water, the DanWatch report says. Such working conditions contravene Brazilian and international law, as well as the ethical codes Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts require from their suppliers.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/mar/02/nestle-admits-slave-labour-risk-on-brazil-coffee-plantations

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1. We Shall See

Nestlé has admitted slave labour in its supply chain of other products, including cat food that sources seafood from Thailand. That the company is now also admitting to forced labour in the coffee industry is a good sign, said Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International.

“Finding slavery in the agricultural supply chains of global food giants isn’t surprising, even in Brazil whose government has made considerable efforts to tackle forced labour.

“However, Nestlé’s confirmation of their purchase from the two plantations in question is more positive, indicative perhaps of a growing tendency towards greater transparency in their supply chain and more attention to human rights.”