When April Banks, a conceptual artist in California, returned from spending almost three months in Ghana and Cuba, bringing back a story that would make you think twice about eating your next piece of chocolate.  The story is not a new one. In fact, parts of this story have existed for years and years as a bitter sweet secret.

Before you buy your next chocolate bar, ask yourself "Was this made on a cacao farm that supports using children as forced labor?"  Once inside the cacao (pronounced kaw-cow) bean farms in Ghana, Banks is told by the farmers that they only produce the cacao bean strictly for exporting and receive about an estimated five cents on the dollar.  Now if they are producing for big corporation such as Hershey, Nestle and Mars, you would think that this type of robbery is unjustified.  However, this is another bigger issue here. 

One of the leaders in the cacao bean production is the Ivory Coast which in 2000 was reported by the State Department to have about 15,000 children sold into forced labor on cocoa, cotton and coffee plantations there in recent years.  Other top producing countries include Ghana followed by Indonesia, Nigeria and Madagascar.  Sadly, many young men and boys are trafficked between countries in West Africa and forced to work on cacao plantations with no pay.  And even more disturbing, no one knows how widespread slavery on cocao plantations in the Ivory Coast is which is the world's largest exporter. 

Banks' travels not only brought back a story to be told, but one that could be visualized for the world to see. Her exhibit of work titled "Free Chocolate" was a visual and material expose that illustrated the world's love of chocolate along with the effects of greed, desire and manipulation.