Ben & Jerry’s is among the companies whose supply chains utilize migrant child labor, often in violation of child labor laws, despite the company’s self-proclaimed progressive values and vowing to “honor and stand with” immigrants.
A New York Times exposé, released earlier this week, interviewed more than 100 migrant children in more than 20 states “who described jobs that were grinding them into exhaustion, and fears that they had become trapped in circumstances they never could have imagined.” The report detailed children as young as 13 working 12-hour days, often overnight shifts before going to school during the day, in order to survive.
The report said migrant children are employed in the supply chain for major companies like Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Ford, General Motors and Ben & Jerry’s, among others.