Child Labor in Girl Scout Cookie Supply Chains

The Girl Scouts are making an important stand here in response to the discovery that their iconic cookies are made using palm oil produced with child labor.

The Girl Scouts of the USA said child labor has no place in its iconic cookies and called on the two companies that bake them to act quickly to address any potential abuses linked to the palm oil in their supply chains.

The comments were sent in the form of a tweet to Associated Press reporters who released an investigation Tuesday linking Girl Scout cookies and the supply chains of other well-known food brands to an estimated tens of thousands of children who often work unpaid for long hours in hazardous conditions to help harvest palm fruits on plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia.

“Child labor has no place in Girl Scout Cookie production,” the Girl Scouts tweeted. “Our investment in the development of our world’s youth must not be facilitated by the under-development of some.”

Of course, the Girl Scouts executives could have found this out themselves before the AP story and chose not to care. But this is kind of story and pressure that needs to be placed upon companies throughout the economy.

The other issue here of course is that Malaysia and Indonesia have decimated their entire jungle in order to produce palm oil, but no one really wants to have that conversation.