In my previous blog which was a book review of Stop the Traffik, I mentioned that slavery and trafficking are huge issues in the world today.
As it turns out, chocolate is based on 90% slave labour. All of the big brands like Cadbury’s, Nestle, Hershey’s and others all buy cocoa from places like the Ivory Coast in Africa where it is grown on slave labour operated farms.
In the words of one of these young slaves – “When you eat chocolate, you are eating my blood.” Sobering isn’t it?
So the main issue here is that when buy most brands of chocolate, we are supporting slavery in the world. It may not just be chocolate however.
As it turns out, the T-shirt you are wearing was probably made with slave labour. The mobile phone (cell phone) you use contains parts that were obtained from slave labour based sources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Coffee you drink is most likely grown on slave labour based farms. And the tea too. In fact a LOT of food and products we consume may have some slavery.
If you ever find something that is so cheap it is almost too good to be true – it was probably produced with slave labour. For many years NIKE (a shoe company) indirectly utilised slave child labour to manufacture footwear. Whilst NIKE has cleaned up is image and methods – many companies have not.
So what to do: Firstly arm yourself with knowledge – Read this book. Secondly when you are buying products, look for items that have the FAIRTRADE logo on them, which is a guarantee that they have been made slave labour free. They may cost a little bit more than other products, but that would be becuase people have actually been paid to make it.
