Vanilla from [Madagascar] flavours everything from Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s to Marks & Spencer desserts and numerous items on the shelves of supermarkets…According to the UN’s International Labour Organisation and the US Department of Labour, nearly 2m children are at work on the island…Unicef, which is working in Madagascar to promote children’s rights [said] “Many of these children are being denied their right to an education and are losing their childhoods..” But although leading retailers and manufacturers impose strict ethical standards on their suppliers, many…believe they cannot monitor the work of farmers further down the chain…An M&S spokeswoman said the supply chain was highly complex but would be investigated…Spokesmen for Waitrose, Sainsbury and Tesco also promised to investigate, insisting that their suppliers guaranteed not to rely on children…A spokeswoman for Unilever, which uses Madagascan vanilla pods for both Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s…said it had no direct responsibility for auditing vanilla production on the island but child labour was unacceptable…