Girl Scouts in the United States said Wednesday that child labor has no place in its iconic cookies and urged the two baking companies to act quickly to address possible palm oil abuses in their supply chains.
The comments were sent in a tweet to the Associated Press reporters who launched an investigation On Tuesday, it links Girl Scout cookies and supply chains to other well-known food brands with tens of thousands of children who often work unpaid for long hours in dangerous conditions to help harvest palm fruit on Indonesian and Malaysian plantations.
“Children’s work has no place in the production of Girl Scout Cookies,” the Girls wrote on Twitter. “Our investment in the development of our world’s youth must not be facilitated by the underdevelopment of some.”
Girl Scouts also referred to a global non-profit organization she owns, called the Sustainable Palm Oil Roundtable, which promotes ethical production, including the treatment of workers, by writing: “If certain suppliers do not follow ethical practices, we expect our bakers and RSPO take prompt action to remedy these exceptions. “
The researchers did not respond to repeated requests from the PA for comments on the findings ahead of Tuesday’s story, which found that many children working in the palm oil industry do not have access to school or adequate health care and some never learn to read or to write . The story detailed how others live in fear of being picked up by police and dumped in detention centers because they were born on plantations to illegally working parents and how girls are vulnerable to sexual abuse.
Reporters traced the children’s work to the supply chain of one of the Girl Scout cookie bakers, Little Brownie Bakers, owned by Italian confectionery brand Ferrero, which did not comment on the findings. The other baker and parent company, Canada-based Weston Foods, did not provide any details about its supply chain, citing ownership reasons. They both said they were committed to obtaining sustainable palm oil.