In the Brazilian Amazon, açaí harvesting is a dangerous job that involves climbing – and sometimes jumping between – tall, wiry trees with a machete, usually barefoot and without any protective equipment beyond a swatch of burlap around a climber’s feet. Since spindly açaí trees cannot hold much weight before they snap, açaí harvesters (called peconheiros) are often children.
Global demand for açaí has exploded in recent years. Today, more than 70 percent of Brazilian acai is exported to the United States, and the global açaí market is on track to become a billion-dollar industry. Work for young peconheiros who harvest caches of the berry from across the rainforest canopy has also accelerated. Once a sporadic activity done to collect enough for the family table, the rapid and large-scale commercialization of açaí has made harvesting more intensive and precarious, increasing the likelihood that peconheiros will experience falls from trees that can be more than 65 feet tall.
Hazardous child labor is a feature of the Brazilian açaí supply chain that serves multinational companies and Global North consumers. Yet açaí companies like Sambazon, Inc. mislead consumers with flashy marketing and empty promises.
Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) has sued Sambazon, alleging that its claims about supply chain sustainability are false and misleading to consumers given the structural embeddedness of hazardous child labor in açaí harvesting.
Hazardous child labor in the açaí supply chain
Hazardous child labor refers to work children perform that is likely to harm their health, safety, or morals. It is considered one of the worst forms of child labor under international standards. Combating hazardous child labor doesn’t mean stopping children from helping out at a family-run shop after school or safely helping with farm chores. It’s about uprooting exploitative, often extractive business practices that rely on children to engage in dangerous, harmful, and inappropriate work. It’s about creating a more just global economy. CAL is seeking corporate accountability for hazardous child labor in several industries, including the West African cocoa sector.
At present, hazardous child labor is inextricable from – and fundamental to – the mass production of Brazilian açaí. In the absence of breakthrough technology that could change the harvesting process, the peculiarities of açaí – which grows on tall, thin trees prone to snapping – require peconheiros to be light in weight, one of the reasons why peconheiros are often children.
Brazil’s impoverished riverside communities in the Amazonian state of Pará are the most abundant producers of açaí in the world. Their harvests are fundamental to the supply chains of companies like Sambazon. The exponential increase in demand for açaí in recent years has led to more children in Pará harvesting more açaí, more often, and for longer periods of time than they have historically.
Some child peconheiros report that to make the most out of a climb, once they scale the first tree and slice off its açaí cache, they leap to the next tree for another cache and then to another, until they can sustain no more weight from the fruit and descend, barefoot, carrying multiple caches and the harvesting knife.
There are many risks associated with açaí harvesting: developmental impediments from climbing contortions, falls causing injury (including paralysis or death), attacks by venomous bugs and snakes, and cuts from machetes and brush. It’s considered one of the most dangerous jobs in Brazil.
If açaí harvesting is a game of chance where losing means permanent injury from accidents or repetitive bodily stress, child laborers roll the dice much too frequently to meet sourcing demands. During harvest season, peconheiros make an estimated one million climbs per day in the Brazilian Amazon. Many peconheiros are also now scaling younger trees planted since the boom, whose thin trunks are even more likely to snap under an adult’s weight. This is especially dangerous since peconheiros generally do not use safety equipment and are far from hospitals when emergencies inevitably occur.
For more information about the impact of the açaí boom on children and communities in Brazil, read Dr. Monte Talley’s dissertation, one of the few in-depth resources on the issue available in English.
The Lawsuit Against Sambazon
Although children often perform the dangerous work of harvesting açaí, Sambazon’s consumer marketing paints the company’s supply chain as sustainable. For example, its website touts a triple bottom line philosophy ensuring that “[f]rom its origin on the palm tree, to the finished product in your palm as you take a bite: every step of our Açaí's journey is purposeful.”
Sambazon also claims to “oversee every step” of its products’ journey. But CAL believes the company fails to back this up with sourcing practices that are different from the industry norm. If Sambazon relies on the standard sourcing model for the industry – and evidence suggests it does – the company does not oversee every step of the process, often buying from intermediaries that are not subject to any oversight from Sambazon. Without the implementation of sourcing practices capable of identifying and preventing hazardous child labor in its supply chain, Sambazon simply cannot provide any assurances to consumers that its supply chain is free from such practices, yet it does so.
Additionally, Sambazon’s products boast Fair for Life certification to consumers. Fair for Life is a certification scheme run by Ecocert that claims to “guarantee that producers and workers [...] work for a fair wage and under good and respectful conditions, in a sustainable environment.” While child labor is a “knockout” finding under Fair for Life standards, “jeopardizing the certificate with immediate effect,” Sambazon products display the Fair for Life seal. It is becoming increasingly clear that when they are not driven and led by workers, eco-social certification schemes fail the communities they purport to protect. Fair for Life certification hasn’t stopped marginalized children from performing hazardous labor in the açaí industry. In fact, as CAL’s Executive Director Charity Ryerson told the Washington Post, “[t]his is one of those situations where certifications shouldn’t be allowed.”
Sambazon attracts consumers, who increasingly care about ethical supply chains, with its people-and-planet-first marketing. But it doesn’t have the receipts to back it up. Neither the procedures currently implemented by Sambazon nor the Ecocert certification of its products are sufficient to prevent hazardous child labor in Sambazon’s supply chain. Seeking accountability, earlier this year CAL sued under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act on behalf of consumers in Washington, D.C. In addition to claims against Sambazon, CAL’s complaint originally contained claims against Ecocert USA for the certifier’s role in the false advertising we allege. Unfortunately, these claims were dropped following a jurisdictional decision in a separate CAL case against a certifier for similar claims. But our claims against Sambazon remain, and the fight for certifier accountability continues.
Açaí-harvesting communities in the Brazilian Amazon are demanding that companies like Sambazon address head-on the major risks associated with sourcing açaí, and that they restructure sourcing practices to maximize benefits to communities – not pretend that human rights risks are not present. Sambazon should put its money where its mouth is and make sustainability a reality in its supply chain – or, at least, ditch the misleading marketing. When businesses sell products that are likely made with hazardous child labor, they should not be able to paint a rose-colored image of sustainability to consumers.
Avery Kelly is a Staff Attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab.
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