For nearly a decade spanning the 1990s and early 2000s, Chiquita’s agricultural operation in Colombia turned bloody.
LEARN MOreChiquita isn’t the only company guilty of atrocities like these. You can help cancel corporate abuse by clicking here.
take actionMany of the products we love and the brands that produce them are linked to human rights abuses. But justice cannot exist without accountability. Chiquita, Nestlé, Cargill, and other global corporations must be held responsible for the abuse from which they profit.
chiquita
The Bloody Story of Chiquita Banana
One of your favorite snacks is hiding a bloody secret:
Beginning with its role in massacres in Colombia in the 1920s, Chiquita Brands International has a long and violent history in Latin America. For nearly a decade in the 1990s and early 2000s, Chiquita paid off Colombia’s deadliest paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), to terrorize communities in the country’s banana-growing regions.
During the 1990s through 2004, the AUC tortured, murdered, raped, and persecuted thousands of civilians. They carried out at least 150 mass killings and countless other brutalities.
The people living in banana growing regions experienced a decade of terror.
The AUC used violence against community leaders, including teachers, activists, trade unionists, human rights defenders, religious workers, and leftist politicians. Paramilitaries also attacked those whom they considered to be “social undesirables.”
Horrific Human Rights Abuses
Led by the infamous Castaño brothers, the AUC was notorious for horrific mass killings of trade unionists, banana workers, political organizers, and social activists. In 2001, the U.S. government classified the AUC as a terrorist organization—but Chiquita continued its relationship with the paramilitaries. When the U.S. Justice Department found out, Chiquita was ordered to pay $25 million in criminal penalties. None of that money went to the victims of Chiquita-AUC brutality.
Families Without Justice for Decades
Chiquita’s victims have gone decades without justice. No compensation. No apology. No closure.
EarthRights is fighting to change that. We are working with human rights lawyers around the world to seek justice for thousands of people who have suffered at the hands of this cruel household brand.
Taking on Powerful Corporations
We’re fighting for justice for these atrocities that happened years ago—and others that profit-mad corporations continue to commit today. This lawsuit is a wake-up call: The United States must hold corporations accountable for their abuses of human and environmental rights. Learn about other companies that have profited from human rights abuses here.
Dig deeper into the Chiquita case. Visit the EarthRights Doe v. Chiquita Brands International case page, or The Chiquita Papers at the National Security Archive.
You can help us bring justice to the families of Chiquita’s victims and end corporate-sponsored violence. Directly support our community leaders and legal strategists, and help share the bloody history of Chiquita bananas.
Act now to support EarthRightsNestlé & Cargill
Corporate Power Without Consequence
For decades, Nestlé and Cargill enabled and profited from slave labor in the Ivory Coast.
Now they are trying to evade responsibility as victims seek to hold the companies accountable in U.S. courts. The victims of these abuses have a right to seek justice, and the U.S. Supreme Court must ensure this case moves forward.
Nestlé is the very definition of a global mega-corporation, selling its products under the umbrella of 2,000 household brands.
For years, Nestlé sourced its chocolate from cocoa plantations in West Africa that use child slave labor. Meanwhile, Nestlé is hiding its history through slick PR campaigns, failing to live up to its commitments to phase slave labor out of its supply chain.
Cargill is the largest privately held corporation in the United States, producing beef, soy, cocoa, and countless other items typically found in grocery stores.
Like Nestlé, Cargill allegedly profits from child slave labor in its supply chains and has refused to compensate victims of forced labor and child abuse.
The reality is, when corporations prioritize profits over people, communities suffer. In 2005, former child slave laborers brought a class action lawsuit against Nestlé and Cargill in U.S. courts. The plaintiffs allege that Nestlé and Cargill aided and abetted child slavery because they purchased and supported cocoa farms in West Africa while knowing these abuses were taking place.
In December, the case is going to the U.S. Supreme Court, and a lot is at stake.
The Trump administration and lobbyists for Big Business are trying to use this case to set a precedent that would close the doors to justice for countless victims of corporate human rights abuses worldwide.
The former child slaves, in this case, have never received justice
The plaintiffs allege that as 12-to-14-year-olds, they were trafficked from Mali to the Ivory Coast. On cocoa farms, they were tortured, enslaved, and forced to work for up to 14 hours a day, six days a week, with no pay.
Child labor still exists on cocoa farms in West Africa. Child laborers often work in dangerous conditions, where they are not allowed to attend school or see their families.
In the early 2000s, Nestlé and Cargill promised to remove slavery and child labor from their supply chains. They broke their promise. Journalists and researchers document that the problem is as bad as ever, and the victims of past abuses have never secured justice for what they suffered.
According to the plaintiffs, the companies were aware of child slave labor and could have stopped it. The companies allegedly had exclusive buyer contracts with many cocoa growers and regularly visited and provided financial support, training, and farm supplies to these farms that used child slave labor.
"I tried to run away, but I was caught... as punishment, they cut my feet, and I had to work for weeks while my wounds healed."
-Former Cocoa Farm Child Laborer
Holding Nestle and Cargill Accountable
For decades, whenever legislators threaten to get tough, corporations like Nestlé and Cargill have promised to take care of the problem. They’ll say anything to avoid accountability. And they know that the best way to do this is to replace laws with toothless “voluntary initiatives” that have repeatedly failed to get results. It’s time to change the law to protect people’s human rights, not corporate profits.
We need immediate reforms:
- All companies that profit from accessing U.S. markets must take steps to avoid human rights abuses in their overseas operations.
- All victims have a right to obtain remedies when they suffer from corporate abuse.
- The U.S. government should establish a “zero tolerance” approach and legal penalties when companies commit human rights violations overseas.
A Global problem
Chiquita, Cargill, and Nestlé aren't the only corporations linked to human rights abuses like these. The agribusiness, mining, and energy industries have profited from abusive tactics around the world.
The lawsuit against Chiquita is a wake-up call to American consumers and a call to action to our government. The United States must hold corporations accountable for their abuses of human rights and the environment.
At least 83 multinational corporations, including Nike, Apple, Google, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, and HP, have reportedly profited from the Chinese government’s atrocities against the Uighur community in Xinjiang, China. The Chinese government has come under scrutiny for forcefully detaining millions of Uighurs into “re-education” camps where they are tortured and exploited for slave labor. This is the largest forced internment of a minority group since the United States detained people of Japanese heritage during World War II. Even those Uighurs who are not placed in these concentration camps have faced overwhelming repression, including the use of invasive, high-tech mass surveillance and mass sterilization. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute connected the Uighurs’ forced labor in 27 factories to 82 global brands.
Colorado-based Newmont Corporation runs large mining projects worldwide, at times using violence and corruption to get its way. In Peru, security forces acting under a memorandum of understanding with Newmont responded with violence against community activists protesting the Conga mine. The police fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition, killing several people and injuring dozens between 2011 and 2014. Around this time, Newmont began a multi-year effort to intimidate land defender Máxima Acuña-Atalaya de Chaupe and her family, bringing meritless charges against them. According to allegations by the family and their local lawyers, Newmont acted to influence the Peruvian courts in its favor. EarthRights is representing the Chaupe family in an ongoing lawsuit against Newmont.
Take action
We’re a team of community leaders and legal strategists around the world who take on powerful corporations, governments, and banks that destroy people’s lives and our planet for profit.
Our growing global team exposes violators and puts a stop to abusive practices.
Support our growing community of earth rights defenders.
CALL ON CONGRESS TO CANCEL CORPORATE ABUSE
Send a letter to call on Congress to cancel corporate abuse.
Help us call on Congress to cancel corporate abuse!
Please send a letter to your representative in Congress asking them to take action. Below is a sample letter to help you get started. We encourage you to modify the letter and share your stories.
Dear Representative [NAME]:
As a constituent, I urge you to take action to stop corporate human rights abuses. Any corporation that sells its products in our country, or raises money on our stock exchanges, should be required to respect human rights. Profit should not come at the expense of people’s lives or dignity.
America needs to be built on justice. Corporations that harm people should face consequences, just as individuals do. Take, for instance, Nestlé and Cargill.
For decades, these two global mega-brands enabled and profited from slave labor on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. Victims of Nestlé and Cargill’s abuse are seeking compensation in U.S. courts--the case will be heard at the U.S. Supreme Court in December.
Plaintiffs allege that they were trafficked to Mali as 12-14 year olds where they were forced to work as slaves on plantations that supply cocoa to the agriculture giants, enduring torture and work without pay. Both companies had exclusive buying contracts with cocoa growers, regularly visited cacao plantations, and provided financial support, training, and farm supplies. According to the plaintiffs, the companies were aware that plantations in their supply chains used child slave labor.
Nestlé and Cargill hold enormous influence over the cocoa industry and could have stopped the abuse, but did not.
Though both companies have since updated their human rights policies and strengthened oversight of their supply chains, they have never compensated the victims. A 2019 investigation by the Washington Post revealed that child labor remains a problem in Ivory Coast. A recent report by the University of Chicago’s NORC researchers for the Department of Labor found that child labor among agricultural households in cocoa-growing areas of Ivory Coast and Ghana increased from 31 percent to 45 percent between 2008 and 2019.
Now, the companies are trying to evade responsibility as victims seek to hold them accountable. The victims of these abuses have a right to seek justice.
Nestlé and Cargill are not the only companies linked to abuses like these. We cannot allow companies that use abusive tactics to operate with impunity. We need binding legislation that holds corporations accountable for violating human rights and provides justice to victims.
Please take action today to stop corporate human rights abuses.
Respectfully,
[NAME]
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ABOUT US
Powerful corporations, governments, and banks around the world collude to exploit valuable natural resources and the communities that rely on them—and they are rarely held accountable.
EarthRights is a team of community leaders and legal strategists around the world who take them on.
We work alongside communities around the world to use their power and the power of the law to end abusive policies and practices that threaten human dignity and natural resources.
Through community-led organizing and strategic litigation in courts around the world, we put maximum pressure on some of the worst violators of human and environmental rights. Our campaigns and cases put a stop to abusive policies and practices. We’ve won tough cases and campaigns that brought meaningful change, and we’re preparing the next generation of earth rights defenders to protect the rights, resources, and livelihoods of their communities.
When corporations, governments, and banks get a blank check to violate human and environmental rights, we all pay the price. People lose their lives, and communities lose control over their natural resources.