The International Labor Rights Fund is planning to sue the United States Customs Service for breaking American trade law and allowing African cocoa picked by indentured child labor to be imported into this country. The suit follows years of reports by human and labor rights groups that the Ivory Coast, one of the major producers of cocoa in the world, uses slave or indentured child labor. Despite the reports, the International Labor Rights Fund contends that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau has not begun an investigation. A spokesman for the Bureau said that they reject the charges and are already enforcing the law.
See "U.S. Agency to Be Cited in Suit About Trade and Child Labor", Elizabeth Becker, The New York Times, May 28, 2003