AP traces child labor from Southeast Asia’s palm oil fields to major…

The final installment of AP's investigation into abusive practices in the sprawling palm oil industry explores child labor: In some cases, an entire family may earn less in a day than a $5 box of Girl Scout Do-si-dos.

Global investigations reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason have long had a commitment to exposing labor abuse in global supply chains, notably their groundbreaking work on slavery in the seafood industry that led to the freeing of more than 2,000 fishermen six years ago.

This time, joined by Indonesia-based photographer Binsar Bakkara, video journalist Allen Breed in North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee, photographer Mark Humphrey, McDowell and Mason looked at another little-noticed group of workers in Asia: children.

The team delved again into the palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia. In the final piece of an AP series around palm oil abuses, they traced the fruits of the labor to the supply chains of the makers of popular cereals, candies and ice creams, including KitKats, Oreos, Magnum and Cap’n Crunch. They also linked the oil to that most American treat: Girl Scout cookies.

Their reporting found that an estimated tens of thousands of children toil in the palm fields, some kept out of school and forced to work for free or for little pay, and routinely exposed to dangerous chemicals. Others are smuggled across borders and left vulnerable to trafficking or sexual abuse.

The story also showed how generations are doomed to know no other life than scraping by on a palm oil plantation.

As the reporters wrote: “In some cases, an entire family may earn less in a day than a $5 box of Girl Scout Do-si-dos.”

1 of 10

A child collects palm kernels from the ground on a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 13, 2017. The AP traced the fruits of this labor to the supply chains of popular kids’ cereals, candies and ice creams sold by Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and many other leading food companies, including one of the two makers of Girl Scout cookies.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

2 of 10

A child carries palm kernels collected from the ground on a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 13, 2017.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

3 of 10

Ima, a girl who works to help her parents on a palm oil plantation, poses for a portrait in Sumatra, Indonesia, Sept. 9, 2018. She was just 10 years old when she joined the throngs of children working on vast plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, which supply 85% of the world's palm oil, used in a dizzying array of products sold by leading Western food and cosmetics brands.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

4 of 10

A child collects palm kernels from the ground on a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 13, 2017. Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil producer.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

5 of 10

A young girl helps her parents work on a palm oil plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, Dec. 10, 2018. Many children gather loose kernels and clear brush from the trees with machetes, never learning to read or write.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

6 of 10

A child helps her parents at work on a palm oil plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, Dec. 10, 2018. With little or no access to daycare, some young children in Indonesia and Malaysia follow their parents to the fields, where they are exposed to toxic pesticides and fertilizers.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

7 of 10

A child helps her parents at work on a palm oil plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, Dec. 10, 2018.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

8 of 10

Students of a boarding school rest in their dormitory in North Kalimantan, Indonesia, April 9, 2019. Some palm oil workers who work illegally in Malaysia send their children to the school in this transit town because they have no access to education in Malaysia due to their parents’ employment status.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

9 of 10

A police officer plays with a child deported with his Indonesian family for working illegally in Malaysia, at an immigration office processing center in Nunukan, Indonesia, Dec. 6, 2018.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

10 of 10

Crosses stand in a cemetery in Tawau, Malaysia, Dec. 9, 2018, where the grandchild and husband of Anna, 45, a migrant worker from Indonesia, are buried. Anna said her son, whose newborn baby was buried next to the infant’s grandfather and other migrant workers, had inherited his father’s job working on a palm oil plantation. He is the family’s primary breadwinner.

AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara

Bakkara provided photos of child laborers from Indonesia and Malaysia, while Humphrey and Breed contributed from the United States, including Humphrey’s photos of a Girl Scout in rural Tennessee.

The compelling framing of the story — through the eyes of a young girl in the fields in Indonesia and the Tennessee Girl Scout campaigning to have palm oil removed from the cookies — resonated with readers.

1 of 6

Olivia Chaffin, 14, stands for a portrait with her Girl Scout sash in Jonesborough, Tenn., Nov. 1, 2020. Chaffin, who stopped selling Girl Scout cookies because they contain palm oil says, “I’m not just some little girl who can’t do anything about this. … Children can make change in the world. And we're going to.”

AP Photo / Mark Humphrey

2 of 6

On Nov. 1, 2020, Olivia Chaffin, 14, displays badges that she has been awarded for selling Girl Scout Cookies in Jonesborough, Tenn. She was a top cookie seller in her troop when she first heard rainforests were being destroyed to produce palm oil.

AP Photo / Mark Humphrey

3 of 6

Olivia Chaffin makes photographs in a wooded area as she works on a Girl Scout photography merit badge in Jonesborough, Tenn., Nov. 1, 2020.

AP Photo / Mark Humphrey

4 of 6

Olivia Chaffin, center, walks in the woods with her parents, Doug, left, and Kim Chaffin, as Olivia works on a Girl Scout photography merit badge in Jonesborough, Tenn., Nov. 1, 2020.

AP Photo / Mark Humphrey

5 of 6

In Jonesborough, Tenn., Nov. 1, 2020, Olivia Chaffin displays a 2017 response she received from the chief executive officer of the Girl Scouts to her concerns over palm oil being used in Girl Scout Cookies. Chaffin is asking Girl Scouts across the country to band with her and stop selling cookies, saying, “The cookies deceive a lot of people. They think it’s sustainable, but it isn’t.”

AP Photo / Mark Humphrey

6 of 6

Olivia Chaffin, center, stands for a portrait with her parents, Doug, left, and Kim Chaffin, at their home in Jonesborough, Tenn., Nov. 1, 2020.

AP Photo / Mark Humphrey

The story scored remarkably high reader engagement and racked up almost 75,000 pageviews on its first day during the slow holiday period, with much of the traffic driven by Twitter and Facebook. It continued to gain tens of thousands of views in the coming days.

The Girl Scouts initially had no comment despite repeated attempts, but the story caught fire on Twitter, goading the organization to send tweets the day after publication calling on the two companies that bake its cookies to act quickly to address any potential abuses linked to the palm oil in their supply chains.

Palm oil labor issues extend far beyond Girl Scout cookies and child labor. We found rape, trafficking, forced labor, even slavery involving men, women and kids. And we traced it to MANY big companies’ supply chains. See all 3 stories here: https://t.co/e7XfDQahTP
— Margie Mason (@MargieMasonAP) December 31, 2020

In mid-December, as a result of earlier reporting by McDowell and Mason, 25 Democratic lawmakers from the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee cited AP’s investigation in a letter calling for the government to come down harder on the industry in Malaysia and Indonesia, asking U.S. Customs and Border Protection if it had considered a blanket ban on imports from those countries.

For shedding unprecedented light on child labor in Southeast Asia’s palm oil fields, and linking the abusive practice to major consumer brands, McDowell, Mason, Bakkara, Breed and Humphrey share AP’s Best of the Week honors for the week of Dec. 28.

Visit AP.org to request a trial subscription to AP's video, photo and text services.

For breaking news, visit apnews.com

Honorable Mentions:

Standout visuals mark a year since eruption in Philippines

Aaron Favila

had a vision for a visually-driven package to mark the year since the violent eruption of the Taal volcano in the Philippines.
With his newly acquired drone pilot license, the Manila-based AP photographer knew that aerial photography would make unique still and video images of the ash-covered ghost town. He also learned that many residents of the volcanic island still remained homeless in a temporary tent city.
After getting approval for the project, he set out to deliver all-formats coverage. He did extensive research, then drove to the volcano, where a local fisherman ferried him to the island that is home to the volcano.
The drone app warned him it was too windy to fly, but Favila knew the visuals would be strong — and it might be his only chance. He launched the drone and kept receiving strong wind warnings during the flight, but he kept the drone airborne long enough to get stunning photos and video.
Next, he explored the ash-covered island, visiting an area where people still live in tents. Residents of the island, which is a popular tourist destination, lost their livelihood: livestock animals and the farmland where they grow vegetables. Favila interviewed people who have had to live in the tents through typhoons, excessive heat and even the pandemic, capturing their touching accounts on video, humanizing the story for an impressive one-person package.
https://bit.ly/35At6yL
https://bit.ly/3bIsUB4
https://bit.ly/38DyX8a

Source work breaks news of attorney general nominee

Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo

had been asking around for weeks about President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for attorney general. They pressed their sources inside the transition once it became clear that the decision came down to just a few names.
Finally, Tucker scored — a transition source gave AP the entire slate of nominees for the department, and not just the stunning choice of Merrick Garland, the former candidate for the Supreme Court who had been spurned by Republicans during the Obama administration. Also included were names for the second in command and leaders of top offices at the Department of Justice.
Tucker had prepped for this and gathered his material while Balsamo checked in with another source and came back with confirmation. They swiftly filed a news alert and story, beating major news outlets by a solid half-hour. This all came two hours before the Capitol siege. The pair’s story was still picked up 580 times with some 200,000 pageviews — especially strong considering the U.S. Capitol was ransacked by rioters the same day. https://bit.ly/2XCjOOe

Records confirm Trump devotees fueled US Capitol riot

Michael Biesecker, Michael Kunzelman, Gillian Flaccus and Jim Mustian

led an effort to dig into the backgrounds of more than 120 people who were either arrested or emerged on social media after storming the U.S. Capitol, finding they were overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials and donors and far-right militants.
AP’s fast-breaking team effort to review social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records was the most comprehensive look yet at those involved in the riot, giving lie to claims by right-wing pundits that the violence was perpetrated by left-wing antifa infiltrators. The detailed background work included calls, and in some cases even doorknocks, to nearly all whose names emerged from the Jan. 6 takeover.
The AP found that many of the rioters were adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory as well as claims by Trump that the vote had been stolen. Several had openly threatened violence against Democrats and Republicans they considered insufficiently loyal to the president.
The team’s story, accompanied by AP photos taken inside the Capitol, scored huge play and was featured prominently on major websites. It stayed among the top stories on AP News for two straight days. https://bit.ly/2Kd7Tn1

AP explores racial double standard in Capitol attack

Aaron Morrison, Gillian Flaccus, Padmananda Rama and Alyssa Goodman

explored the apparent disparity between the response to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and last year’s racial justice protests.
New York-based race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison had watched President Donald Trump’s supporters storm the Capitol and reasoned that the protesters who called out racial injustice over the summer wouldn’t have been allowed to get close enough to the Capitol to breach it. Morrison and the AP team set out to examine the circumstances.
Sources gave Morrisons interviews or statements saying that Black people who protest systemic racism are often met by police or National Guard troops equipped with assault rifles and tear gas. However, they pointed out, the mostly white mob that attacked the Capitol was met by an underwhelming law enforcement presence.
Urban affairs reporter Gillian Flaccus contributed to Morrison’s reporting from Portland, Oregon, where Black Lives Matter advocates quickly noted the discrepancy between Trump’s response to racial justice protests in the Pacific Northwest city and his encouragement of the violence in the halls of Congress.
Washington-based broadcast producer Padmananda Rama interviewed newly sworn-in St. Louis Rep. Cori Bush, who said the race of the Capitol rioters played a big part in their ability to breach the building; her video was packaged with the text piece. And Top Stories Hub photo editor Alyssa Goodman pulled together several images contrasting how the last week’s insurrection was handled as opposed to the racial justice protests.
The violent breaching of the halls of power on Capitol Hill represented “one of the plainest displays of a racial double standard in both modern and recent history,” Morrison wrote.
https://bit.ly/3bCEcqv
https://bit.ly/38HK0x2

AP: Brazilian women seek now-legal abortions in Argentina

Tatiana Pollastri, Almudena Calatrava, David Biller, Yesica Brumec and Andre Penner

teamed up to make AP the first news organization to report the extremely sensitive and timely story of Brazilian women starting to travel to Argentina for now-legal abortions.
The complex all-formats story required coordination between Brazilian and Argentine bureaus to follow individuals crossing the border, and awareness of the shifting legal issues in both countries. The staffers had to ensure that AP was presenting the story and its protagonists in a way that was fair, useful to clients, and — most importantly — minimized risks of our interviewees facing backlash.
The AP had unique access to a 20-year-old woman traveling to Argentina who agreed to show her masked face and be quoted by her first name. They had worked diligently to cultivate her trust and that of the nongovernmental agency assisting her, repeatedly addressing concerns without applying pressure.
Ultimately, both the woman and the agency were comfortable with the result: The package offered a uniquely intimate perspective into this highly controversial issue that disproportinately affects women from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. https://bit.ly/3bws3nd

Best of the Week — First Winner

Jan. 11, 2021

AP traces child labor from Southeast Asia’s palm oil fields to major brands, Girl Scout cookies

Featured Honorable Mention

Fact-check team dissects Trump’s Georgia phone call

Link to story

Story Type

location

Follow