The billion-dollar chocolate industry starts with workers like Abdul. Abdul holds the yellow cocoa pod lengthwise and gives it two quick pops, opening it to reveal the milky white cocoa beans. In the course of an (act of asking questions and trying to find the truth about something) for CNN's Freedom Project, the effort to start (do something) - an (act of asking questions and trying to find the truth about something) that went deep into the cocoa fields of Ivory Coast - a team of professional CNN writers found that child labor (illegally moving things from one place to another) and slavery are common in an industry that produces some of the best known brands in the world. After a series of reports surfaced in 2001 regarding serious violations in the cocoa industry, U.S. lawmakers placed enormous pressure on the industry to change. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay “How many people in America know that all this chocolate they are eating – candies and all those wonderful chocolates – is produced by terrible child labor?” But after an intense attempt to convince lawmakers by the cocoa industry, Lawmakers were unable to pass a law. What they got was a code of conduct (something you choose to do, but is not required), signed by the top brass of the chocolate industry, to stop the worst. forms of child labor “as a matter of extreme importance.” One of the key goals was to certify the cocoa trade as free of child labor. UNICEF estimates (in numbers) that nearly half a million children work on farms in Ivory Coast, which produces nearly 40% of the world's cocoa supply. The (service company/government unit/power/operation) claims that hundreds of thousands of children, many of whom (illegally moved things from one place to another) across borders, are involved in the worst forms of child labor. “I think the situation has gotten better (more and more as time goes by),” said Rabola Kagohi, country director of the International Cocoa Effort, to begin (do something), the chocolate industry's response to fighting child labor and (illegally moving things from one place to another). “I wish you had talked to some cultivators.” None of the farmers CNN spoke to in the heart of the cocoa-producing area said they had ever been reached by the International Cocoa Effort to start (doing something), the government or the chocolate companies on the baby (illegal move of things from one place to another). He can't cut the grass in the cocoa fields without cutting himself. During the harvest season, he works day after day cutting cocoa pods. But they could have done better." One of the main players in Côte d'Ivoire's cocoa trade is, as expected, the Ivorian government. But government leadership blames the cocoa industry's problems on politics and war. “Thirty years of (without a stable and reliable government) have caused a lot of damage to our (process of producing, selling and buying things) in general, and to the agriculture-based part/area in particular, and more specifically to the l cocoa industry,” said Ivory Coast Agriculture Minister Sangafowa Coulibaly. “The main reason is that today the serious political problem is behind us, the armed conflict is behind us.” But many.