Chocolate's Child Slaves

Everyone loves chocolate. But for thousands of people, chocolate is the reason for their enslavement.

The chocolate bar you snack on likely starts at a plant in a West African cocoa plantation, and often the people who harvest it are children. Many are slaves to a system that produces something almost all of us consume and enjoy.

The CNN Freedom Project sent correspondent David McKenzie into the heart of the Ivory Coast - the world’s largest cocoa producer - to investigate what's happening to children working in the fields.

His work has resulted in a shocking, eye-opening documentary showing that despite all the promises the global chocolate industry made a decade ago, much of the trade remains unchanged. There are still child slaves harvesting cocoa, even though some have never even tasted chocolate and some don't even know what the word "chocolate" means.

In the documentary "Chocolate’s Child Slaves," CNN discovers a human trafficking network and farmers using child labor for an industry offering low prices and little more than broken promises.

The documentary first airs on Friday, January 20. As you now ponder the injustices chocolate can cause, are you considering checking your next chocolate purchase for a fair-trade label? Can that seemingly inconsequential action of looking at a label spur a chain of events? Or do you think it takes more than a label to change an industry? We'll also find out what the chocolate industry says about all this in a discussion airing after the documentary.