I have to admit that I'm quite stunned and a little bit shocked to have just learned some facts about chocolate production that I am sure not many people are aware of.  I happened to be clicking through the CNN dot com business section as I do just about every day, when I came across a headline titled "the human cost of chocolate".  Well, since I like chocolate...as I'm sure that many of you do, I was intrigued by the headline and decided to go in for a closer look.  I was surprised to encounter a slide show documenting the process of chocolate production as it stands in countries of West Africa where the majority of the world's chocolate supply comes from.  While we often think of child labor issues in south eastern and eastern Asia, very rarely do we hear talk about the conditions concerning child labor in African countries.  As an Africanist by trade, stories like these are especially shocking, considering the fact, as the article details, nothing is being done to combat the practices.  As it turns out, the cocoa beans that are harvested in West Africa make up nearly three-quarters of the world's supply.  The people who are harvesting these beans for the rest of the world are just young children who are living and operating under terrible conditions and getting paid close to nothing for their efforts.  The pictures provided in the slide show are absolutely shocking as they reveal the squalorous conditions that families live in who work on the cocoa plantations in several countries in the forest areas of West Africa.  While it may be true that the majority of Africa is lacking in modern technologies and resources in comparison to many other places around the world, the conditions displayed in these photographs reveal a truly unacceptable and inhumane situation.  The pictorial captions tell a story focused on the child of poor plantation workers who are forced to move their families away from areas that have a ready supply of food and other necessities.  On account of this distance from towns and villages, the children are forced to work alongside their parents on the plantations rather than being afforded the opportunity to go to school.  Another shocking fact about the chocolate producing industry is the payment structure and how it affects the workers who are trying desperately to survive with their families by working in these conditions.  The cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast for example is funded by a non-government organization or NGO which, for a slew of reasons is not responsible for paying wages directly to the cocoa plantation workers.  They instead outsource their payments to yet another non-government organization that provides wages, shelter, and food for the worker.  Where there is a middle man however, there always appears to be a reassignment or realignment of funds, not to mention funds used up in the transfer to fund the second group.  Once again, the plantation workers are suffering at the hands of these NGOs on many levels.  What can we possibly do but sit idly by in these situations?  It seems as though things are so far out of the hands of the average American who feels so strongly against unacceptable child labor practices elsewhere around the globe.  I personally feel nearly helpless to be able to even speak up about the situation, but not surely not as helpless as those poor families and their children who are forced to work in such terrible conditions to satisfy the decadent taste buds of chocolate lovers around the world.