Originally published on the CGS blog on June 3, 2015.
Do you know where the coffee used in your Venti Iced Caramel Macchiato you drink religiously comes from? How about the chocolate used in your favorite candy bar? While these products come to us fresh, well packaged, nutritional facts intact, what often treads behind these seemingly harmless treats is a silent trail of perpetual poverty, economic injustice, and slave labor.
It is estimated that there are approximately 21 million people enslaved throughout the world today. According to The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), an estimated 218 million children are engaged in labor globally, with 70% of child laborers working in agriculture.
In the Ivory Coast, which supplies more than 70 percent of the world’s cocoa, farmers earn less than $2 a day–well below poverty line. Despite the country’s natural resources and constant exportation of the good, Ivorian communities remain extremely poor, causing children to enter the workforce at dangerously young ages (working with hazardous tools such as Machetes) and leaving them especially vulnerable to becoming slave laborers.
Along Lake Volta in Ghana, children are sold into a life of forced labor and abuse. Forced to fish for 19-hour shifts with unequipped boats and one meal a day, children suffer harsh working conditions, and many drown from getting tangled underwater in nets cast out for fish.
Fair trade is a system of international trade that reinforces ethical standards and practices in the global marketplace for agricultural goods produced in developing communities. These practices include the maintenance of fair labor conditions and wages, the eradication of child labor, sustainable approaches to agriculture, and most importantly, promoting investment into the communities of the farmers that produce these goods. In short, the goal of fair trade is to “challenge conventional trading systems that condemn millions to poverty and hardship.” Fair Trade goods are certified to be produced ethically and responsibly, and benefit over 1.2 million families in 70 developing countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
As consumers, it is paramount that we take the time to inform ourselves of the corporate negligence and essential apathy that make way for forced child and slave labor. Last week I talked about the adverse effects the TPP can have on already diminishing workers’ rights globally. As we’re beginning to see very clearly, free trade isn’t necessarily free, and it sure as hell isn’t fair!
With supply-chain slavery playing a huge role in many of the commodities we consume daily, here are a few steps you can take to support fair trade and encourage compassionate labor rights.
Be informed.
Know The Chain is a great resource that fosters transparency by allowing users to search supply chains and see if a specific company has a statement posted addressing SB-657 requirements and provides the direct link to the statement.
Shop Fair Trade.
Check out the links below for certified Free Trade retailers and brands!
http://fairtradeusa.org/products-partners
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/buying-fairtrade
http://globalgoodspartners.org/
Spread the Word!
Although widespread, many people are unaware of the child and slave labor that drives many of our goods to our kitchen tables. You can help eradicate supply-chain slavery by simply telling a friend, coworker, or family member about this growing stigma and connect them to resources so they too may buy Fair Trade goods.
It’s time that we as a society turn away from the archaic notion that poverty is an inevitable by-product of capitalism. In this farmer-corporation dichotomy, the majority of the wealth is ripped from the exhausted hands of those suffering to create it. We observe low quality of life and ineffective schools concentrated in these communities, drastically limiting access to educational opportunities.
Unfair wages and working conditions perpetuate poverty, making way for cyclical oppression and leaving millions vulnerable to an array of social injustices, such as sex trafficking and other forms of slave labor. Economic justice is the foundation for developing a humane and sustainable global community. It’s time these communities reap the rewards of economic empowerment. By supporting Fair Trade certified goods, you can help loosen the grip of corporate power that seems to be strangling humanity.
