Harkin, Engle Politicize Child Slavery

A heart-moving, but ultimately misdirected, op/ed this Valentine's Day in the LATimes draws attention to child slavery on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast.

Written by two Dems, Tom Harkin and Eliot L. Engel, the piece blames US chocolate companies for the despicable things that are going on in Ivory Coast, and say that a two-year period for the companies to establish systems to stop the use of exploitive child labor have passed without the progress they want.

Unmentioned by Harkin and Engel is anything about the political situation in Ivory Coast and the vast ineptitute of French forces to stabilize the country. Could this perhaps have slowed the chocolate companies' progress some?

One wonders why they would take the trouble to write the op/ed and not mention that there's an insurgency going on. Dems are quick to be unforgiving of any lack of progress in insurgency-plagued Iraq, and just as unforgiving of the chocolate companies' situation in insurgency-plagued Ivory Coat, but they seem to be so forgiving of the French that they don't even mention what's going on in the ground in that country.

A solution of the child labor situation in Ivory Coast needs to come quickly, and it will require cooperation, pressure and vision -- there's no room for dishonesty, or demonizing companies that are struggling in a difficult situation.