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LINK Girl Scout cookie ingredient, palm oil, tied to child labor practices

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

Olivia Chaffin, a Girl Scout in rural Tennessee, was a top cookie seller in her troop when she first heard rainforests were being destroyed to make way for ever-expanding palm oil plantations. On one of those plantations a continent away, 10-year-old Ima helped harvest the fruit that makes its way into a dizzying array of products sold by leading Western food and cosmetics brands.

Ima is among the estimated tens of thousands of children working alongside their parents in Indonesia and Malaysia, which supply 85% of the world’s most consumed vegetable oil. An Associated Press investigation found 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. Many live in limbo with no citizenship and fear being swept up in police raids and thrown into detention.

snytiger6 9 Jan 5
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2 comments

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1

I guess you plan on eating sawdust & protein, practically every baked good in the stores,and a Bunch of other thngs, like commercial creamy sauces on vegetables & rice or pasta, contain palm oil.

2

Untied States treats its own poor badly. What's the surprise that corporate America doesn't care about child labor overseas. I'd like to boycott girl Scout cookies, problem is, I kind of have to buy them from friend's daughters and granddaughters.

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