A child helps her parents work on a palm oil plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, in 2018. With little or no access to daycare, some young children in Indonesia and Malaysia follow their parents to the fields, where they are exposed to toxic pesticides and fertilizers.
Binsar Bakkara/Associated Press
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 Jonesborough, Tennessee, was a top cookie seller in her troop when she first heard rainforests were being destroyed to make way for 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.
An estimated tens of thousands of children work alongside their parents in Indonesia and Malaysia, which supply 85% of the world’s most consumed vegetable oil.
Associated Press
A child carries palm kernels collected from the ground across a creek at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2017. Previous Next
Wednesday, December 30, 2020 1:00 am
Global palm oil industry exploiting child labor
AP investigation looks into problem
ROBIN McDOWELL and MARGIE MASON | Associated Press
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 that 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.
ROBIN McDOWELL & MARGIE MASON
Associated Press
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
Associated Press
A child carries palm kernels collected from the ground across a creek at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. Child labor has long been a dark stain on the $65 billion global palm oil industry. Though often denied or minimized as kids simply helping their families on weekends or after school, it has been identified as a problem by human rights groups, the United Nations and the U.S. government. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
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.