There are three main ways in which children are introduced to cocoa farms. Those living in poverty who are desperate to find ways in which to support their families are told by traffickers that there is good work to be found on cocoa plants. They are not told the repercussions. Similarly, there are instances where families “sell” their child to farmers as laborers because of their need for more income. They are not told the repercussions. Lastly, some children are abducted from neighboring villages by traffickers and sold to farmers. They become slaves, as they are not paid and we’re not given the choice to become a laborer. They face the worst repercussions (Food Empowerment Project). Aly Diabate has faced these repercussions. At the age of 11, when many of us would be watching Disney and attending school, Aly was abducted from his home and sold to a farmer in the Ivory Coast. He recalls working from six in the morning to six-thirty at night, using a machete to cut cocoa pods from trees and holding the pods in his hand as he slams the machete into its green and yellow body, every strike having the potential to inflict intense injury. On the children, you can see cuts, bruises, and scars from such incidents. What you can’t see is the internal damage the children suffer while breathing agricultural chemicals and carrying dangerous weights. Weighing up to one hundred pounds when full, harvested cocoa pods would be carried through the forest by children. “Some of the bags were taller than me,” Aly Diabate wrote, “it took two people to put the bag on my head. And when you didn’t hurry, you were beaten.” Beatings were a part of day to day life for Aly and the children he labored with. Some children made escape attempts, which in response prompted more abuse (Diabate). There have also been documented cases of children and adults being locked in rooms at night to prevent such escape attempts (Food Empowerment Project). Aly Diabate experienced this personally, being locked in a windowless shed with seventeen other boys, and being let out only to work. The company that bought from the plantation that enslaved Aly Diabate was Nestlé- “the company that sells [chocolate] to you is paying the slave owners," (Diabate).