A girl scout indicates a link to the palm oil industry and child labor in scout cookies

They are two girls from two very different worlds, connected by a global industry that exploits an army of children.

Olivia Chaffin, a girl scout in rural Tennessee, was a leading cookie seller in her troop when she first heard that rainforests were being destroyed to make way for ever-expanding palm oil plantations. In one of these plantations, a continent away, 10-year-old Ima helped harvest the fruit that paves the way in a dizzying array of products sold by major Western food and cosmetic brands.

Ima is among the tens of thousands of children who usually work alongside their parents in Indonesia and Malaysia, who supply 85% of the most consumed vegetable oil in the world. An Associated Press investigation found that most earn little or no pay and are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals and other dangerous conditions. Some never go to school or learn to read and write. Others are smuggled across borders and left vulnerable to trafficking or sexual abuse.

The AP used US customs records and the most recently published data from producers, traders and buyers to track the fruits of their labor from processing plants where palm kernels were crushed to the supply chains of many popular infant cereals. , candies and ice cream sold by Nestlé, Unilever, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and many other leading food companies, including Ferrero – one of two Girl Scout cookie makers.

Olivia, who won a badge for selling more than 600 boxes of cookies, saw palm oil as an ingredient on the back of one of her packages, but was relieved to see the logo of a green tree next to the words “sustainable certificate”. She assumed that this meant that her thin candies and tagalongs were not harming rainforests, orangutans or those who picked red-orange palm fruit.

Later, however, the smart 11-year-old saw the word “mixed” on the label and quickly learned that it meant exactly what she feared: sustainable palm oil had been mixed with oil from unsustainable sources. For her, this meant that the cookies she sold were contaminated.

Pulled from fourth grade to work camps

Thousands of kilometers away, in Indonesia, Ima taught mathematics classes and dreamed of becoming a doctor. Then, her father made her drop out of school to help her meet the company’s high goals in planting palm oil where she was born. Instead of attending fourth grade, she squatted in the relentless heat, picking up the loose grains scattered on the floor.

She sometimes worked 12 hours a day, wearing only slippers and no gloves, crying when the sharp points of the fruit were bloody on her hands or scorpions pricked her fingers. The loads she carried went to one of the factories that fed Olivia’s biscuit supply chain.

“I’m dreaming that one day I can go back to school,” she told AP.

Dark spot in the $ 65 billion industry

Child labor has long been a black spot in the $ 65 billion global palm oil industry, identified as a problem by human rights groups, the United Nations and the United States government.

With little or no access to daycare, some children in both countries follow their parents to the countryside. In some cases, an entire family can earn less in one day than a $ 5 Scout Do-si-dos box.

“For 100 years, families have been trapped in a cycle of poverty and know nothing more than to work on a palm oil plantation,” said researcher Kartika Manurung, who published reports detailing labor issues on Indonesian plantations.

AP’s investigation of child labor is part of a broader and more in-depth analysis of the industry, which also exposed rape, trafficking in forced labor and slavery. Reporters crossed Malaysia and Indonesia, speaking to more than 130 current and former workers – about two dozen of them child workers – at about 25 companies.

US Customs and Borders in September blocked shipments of palm oil and palm oil products from FGV Holdings Berhad, a major producer in Malaysia, after a wide range of labor abuse indicators were found, including physical and sexual violence and forced child labor. The customs order came a week after the Associated Press investigation exposed a litany of labor abuses in the palm oil industry in Malaysia and Indonesia.

“We again ask the U.S. importing community to do their due diligence,” said Brenda Smith, assistant executive commissioner for the US Customs and Border Protection Office in September, adding that they should examine their palm oil supply chains. . “We also encourage American consumers to ask questions about the origin of their products.”

The contaminated palm oil has been traced back to the supply chains of the most iconic food and cosmetic companies on the planet, including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble.

1.5 million children in Indonesia alone

Indonesian government officials said they did not know how many children work in the country’s huge palm oil industry. But the UN International Labor Organization has estimated that 1.5 million children between 10 and 17 years old work in their agricultural sector. Palm oil is one of the largest crops, employing around 16 million people.

In much smaller neighboring Malaysia, a recently released government report estimated that more than 33,000 children work in the industry there – almost half of them aged 5 to 11 years. This report did not directly address the tens of thousands of so-called “stateless” boys and girls who live in the countryside with parents who came from neighboring countries.

An official at the Malaysian Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Nageeb Wahab, head of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, considered the allegations of child labor to be very serious and asked that the complaints be reported to the authorities.

Soes Hindharno, an official at the Indonesian Ministry of Human Resources, said he had received no complaints about child labor in his own country, but a ministry official who oversees the issues of women and children has classified this area as a growing concern.

Many producers, western buyers and banks belong to the 4,000-member Sustainable Palm Oil Roundtable, a global association that provides a green seal of approval for those committed to dealing with certified palm oil of ethical origin. RSPO has a system in place to handle complaints, including allegations of labor abuse. But of the nearly 100 complaints listed on its case tracker over the past decade in the two Southeast Asian countries, only a handful have mentioned children.

Dan Strechay, RSPO’s global outreach and outreach director, said the association started working with UNICEF and others to educate members about what constitutes child labor.

KitKats, Oreos, Cap’n Crunch and more

Palm oil is present in about half of the products on supermarket shelves and in almost three out of four cosmetic brands, and many children are introduced to it on the day they are born – it is a primary fat in infant formula. As they grow, it is present in many of their favorite foods: it is in their Pop-Tarts and Cap’n Crunch cereals, Oreo cookies, KitKat chocolate bars, Magnum ice cream, donuts and even chewing gum.

Olivia is not the first girl scout to question the way palm oil reaches cookies. More than a decade ago, two girls in a Michigan troop campaigned against its use, prompting the US Girl Scouts to join the RSPO and agree to start using sustainable palm oil, adding the green tree logo to their fence. 200 million boxes of cookies, which earn almost $ 800 million annually.

The Girl Scouts did not answer the AP’s questions, directing reporters to the two bakers who make the cookies – Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky and ABC Bakers in Virginia. These companies and their headquarters, Ferrero and Weston Foods, respectively, also did not comment on the findings. But both said they were committed to getting only certified sustainable palm oil.

When contacted by the AP, other companies stated their support for human rights for all workers, with some noting that they depend on their suppliers to meet industry standards and comply with local laws. If evidence of irregularities is found, some said they would immediately cut ties with producers.

“Our goal is to prevent and solve the problem of child labor wherever it occurs in our supply chain,” said Nestlé, maker of KitKat chocolate bars. And Kellogg’s, the parent company of Pop-Tarts, said it was committed to working with suppliers to obtain “fully traceable palm oil”. There was no response from Mondelez, owner of the Oreo cookies, or PepsiCo, the parent company of Cap’n Crunch.

Now 14, Olivia, who lives in Jonesborough, Tennessee, has initiated a petition to remove palm oil from Girl Scout cookies. And she stopped selling them.

“I thought the Girl Scouts should be about making the world a better place,” she said. “But that is not making the world any better.”