According to this guy, it should be...
AMSTERDAM, Feb 9 (Reuters Life!) - A Dutch journalist asked an Amsterdam court on Friday to convict him for eating chocolate, saying by doing so he was benefiting from child slavery on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast.
Teun van de Keuken, 35, is seeking a jail sentence to raise consumer awareness and force the cocoa and chocolate industry to take tougher measures to stamp out child labor.
"If I am found guilty of this crime, any chocolate consumer can be prosecuted after that. I hope that people would stop buying chocolate and thus hurt the sales of big corporations and make them do something about the problem," van de Keuken said.
Ivory Coast, the world's No. 1 cocoa producer which has been racked by instability since a brief 2002 civil war, is the target of allegations by international rights groups that children are working as slaves on its cocoa plantations.
Van de Keuken launched his attempt to be charged for eating chocolate two years ago when the Dutch public prosecutor ruled that it was not a case for the courts and that the journalist was not directly involved with the cocoa business.
On Friday, he appealed against the prosecutor's decision before a court which is expected to rule in April.
The journalist traveled to Burkina Faso to track down former child slaves who he said were sold by their impoverished parents or lured by merchants to work on Ivory Coast farms.
Van de Keuken said he has now brought one of these former child slaves to testify in court against him.
"We profit from these people and they get almost nothing in return. As consumers we are also responsible for these atrocities," van de Keuken told Reuters.
He urged consumers to choose fair trade chocolate but warned it was often difficult to trace the origin of cocoa beans.
The Netherlands is the biggest importer and processor of cocoa beans in the European Union, which accounts for 40 percent of global cocoa processing.
"I cannot deny that there are issues with child labor but it is totally wrong to call it slavery," said Robert Zehnder, secretary general of the European Cocoa Association (ECA). "We work with governments and NGOs to address the problem."
David Zimmer from the CAOBISCO industry association said boycotts of chocolate would hurt farmers in west Africa as 10 million people depended on cocoa for their livelihood.
Members of the global chocolate and cocoa industry signed an accord in late 2001 for the introduction of a certification system by July 2005 that would enable customers to choose chocolate produced without abusive labor practices. But, to the frustration of rights groups, deadlines have been slipping.
Thoughts? Remember, no flames....or Snickers....allowed.
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Thoughts? Remember, no flames....or Snickers....allowed.
Ugh. >_< I think that joke just lessened my life span...
'TWAS A JEST, PEOPLE! PUT THOSE PITCHFORKS AWAY!
In short, someone needs to do something about this, but it's more than asinine to blame chocolate consumers for it. If that man wants to protest, I don't disagree, I don't...not care! I emplore him for such an act.
Sometimes I think it better for the U.S. to drop the War in Iraq for a year or two...dozen, and clean up little things like this. Or, I think it's little. Where's the Ivory Coast?
DO THEY HAVE WMDS!?
~Nytloc Penumbral Lightkeeper
Foolish mortal, if people who bought products produced via child laber were imprisoned, we'd all be either starving and naked or in jail.
*Munches on chocolate* Mmm... I can taste the bitter tang of broken dreams in every bite.
Or is that salmonella?
lol, Cadbury...
Chocolate is gross anyway.
YAY LET'S EAT LIKE A BIG BLOCK OF BEANS AND SUGAR.
...Eww.
tasty beans and sugar, darn it! it's not like they're pinto beans or something. 
no lois, coffee is a bad bean...
Seriously, child labor? hmm... well, kids shouldnt work but thats not the problem of our government now is it? we dont have child labor (unless you consiter school labor, which is kinda is in a small way) so why not blame the countries that allow child labor?
On a serious note the chocolate industry has been working to improve the lot of child laborers in the Ivory Coast, with some limited successes to date.
However the chocolate produced in the Ivory Coast is designed for mass production and uniform taste. If you want really good chocolate you should probably go for single country origin chocolates from central or south America. I dropped a healthy chunk of change at chocosphere.com to give my tastebuds a world tour.
So far I'm finding that I have very particular tastes.
Jimro
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we dont have child labor
I thought I took you to Sonic while you were here.
~Tobe
fair trade chocolate tastes better than all other chocolate, especially Hershey's, IMHO. ^^; I'm a brit, but I lived in Kansas for a year. I'm not always fond if english chocolate, but the stuff you have stateside, ugh! Am I really the only one who thinks it tastes like rotten/sour milk?
If eating chocolate is a crime, I should get the death penality. 
