Harry Potter Fans Win Battle Against Slave Labor-Made Chocolate

As of today, all Harry Potter chocolates sold by Warner Brothers will be fair trade with high ethical standards, and will not be produced using child labor. This is a big step in the right direction, and it's all thanks to a group of well-meaning Harry Potter fans who set the change into motion, according to the Washington Post.

The group is called The Harry Potter Alliance (they clearly missed the opportunity to call themselves Dumbledore's Army Redux). It was formed in 2005, and takes on activist causes like this one, through the lens of fandom. In 2010, the group started a campaign called "Not in Harry's Name" to get Warner Brothers to meet stricter ethical and sustainable standards for the production of their chocolate products, including the ever-popular Chocolate Frogs. The efforts caused the anti-slavery group Free 2 Work to review Warner Brothers' chocolate supplier. The supplier was given an F, largely due to transparency issues.

"If 'Harry Potter' [as a franchise] were to be in alignment with the values of Harry Potter [himself], it could be a real symbolic and coherent victory," Alliance founder Andrew Slack told the Washington Post. " If the 'Harry Potter' brand were to move something like fair trade, it would be making a statement that not only is the 'Harry Potter' brand a cut above the rest, but that [other franchises] have to catch up to it."   

But the Harry Potter Alliance has proven that good can overcome evil, and after a four-year battle, Warner Brothers has announced that, "by the end of 2015, and sooner when possible, all Harry Potter chocolate products sold at Warner Bros. outlets and through our licensed partners will be 100-percent UTZ or Fair Trade certified."