Modern Slavery

Most people believe slavery no longer exists, but it is still very much alive. From Khartoum to Calcutta, from Brazil to Bangladesh, men, women, and children live and work as slaves or in slave-like conditions. According to the London-based Anti-Slavery International (ASI), the world's oldest human-rights organization, there are at least 27 million people in bondage. Indeed, there may be more slaves in the world than ever before. Child slavery exists to fuel the luxury markets of diamonds and chocolate. When you think of diamonds, do you think of children who slave to mine, cut and polish them? When you eat a piece of chocolate, do you think of the children who slave to harvest 70% of the world’s cocoa? We must begin to understand where our products, especially vacuous luxury items, come from, and how their journey lives in our actions - to support or to denounce.Bling and bullshit reaches a new level, when the realization the diamonds purchased to show wealth and success come from the hands of child slaves in Conflict mines, passed to the hands of indentured child servants in India for cutting and polishing, to the international diamond market, for sale and trade. There is blood on every diamond on this planet, if not directly supporting or using child slave labor, by supporting a market that feeds off of slavery and offers nothing to the world but more division and classism.Yah, this is a hard truth. It gets harder. Open pits and strip mining for diamonds in Africa and other areas of the world create huge environmental problems. The labor camps are often frequented by company hired sex workers who help spread AIDS, already rampant in the African continent. The tradition of indentured servitude in India’s diamond industry goes as far as having child laborers pass on their debt to younger siblings or relatives, continuing the cycle of poverty endlessly. While chocolate is sweet for us, it is heartbreaking for cocoa producers and their families.The most recent survey of conditions on West African cocoa farms, completed by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture for the U.S. Agency for International Development, estimated that nearly 300,000 children work in dangerous conditions such as using machetes and applying pesticides and insecticides without the necessary protective equipment. Many of these children work on family farms, the children of cocoa farmers who are so trapped in poverty they have to make the hard choice to keep their children out of school to work on cocoa farms in the four countries surveyed Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon the vast majority of them in the Ivory Coast. The report, released in July 2002, says that of the 300,000 children, more than half (64 percent) are under 14 years old. Twelve thousand had no connection to the family on whose cocoa farm they toiled, but only 5,100 of them were paid for their work. Almost 6,000 were described as "unpaid workers with no family ties," provoking advocates to refer to them as "slaves." The rest work on their families' farms, kept home from school to do punishing work during the all important harvest seasons. The latter category are, in the definition of the International Labor Organization, child laborers. Most cocoa farmers are trapped in poverty and forced to rely on child labor and even child slavery against their heartfelt wishes to do otherwise. Meanwhile, the chocolate companies that have exacerbated these problems and profit from them refuse to offer the Fair Trade alternative farmers need to make ends meet. The six largest cocoa producing countries are the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Cameroon. Cocoa has especially significant effects on the economy and the population in these countries. For example, in Ghana, cocoa accounts for 40% of total export revenues, and two million farmers are employed in cocoa production. The Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, providing 43% of the world's cocoa.The results, released in August 2002, indicated that child slavery is thankfully very limited, other egregious forms of child labor are unfortunately widespread. The ITTA also reported that about 12,500 children working on cocoa farms had no relatives in the area, a warning sign for trafficking. These child laborers face arduous work, as cacao pods must be cut from high branches with long-handled machetes, split open, and their beans scooped out. Children who are involved in the worst labor abuses come from countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo -- nations that are even more destitute than the impoverished Ivory Coast. Parents in these countries sell their children to traffickers believing that they will find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send their earnings home. But as soon as they are separated from their families, the young boys are made to work for little or nothing. The children work long and hard -- they head into the fields at 6:00 in the morning and often do not finish until 6:30 at night. " Though he had worked countless days harvesting cocoa pods -- 400 of which are needed to make a pound of chocolate -- Diabate has never tasted the finished product. "I don't know what chocolate is," he told the press. It is unbelievable and unacceptable that, in the beginning of the 21st century, the children of West Africa are trapped in such desperation and even slave labor. These children typically lack the opportunity for education, leaving them with no way out of their cycle of despair. The IITA noted that 66% of child cocoa workers in the Ivory Coast did not attend school. About 64% of children on cocoa farms are under age 14, meaning that the loss of an education comes at an early age for the majority of children on cocoa farms. For years, US chocolate manufacturers have said they are not responsible for the conditions on cocoa plantations since they don't own them. But the $13 billion chocolate industry is heavily consolidated, with just two firms -- Hershey's and M&M/Mars -- controlling two-thirds of the US chocolate candy market. Surely, these global corporations have the power and the ability to reform problems in the supply chain. What they lack is the will. Despite growing demand, M&M/Mars, Inc. has refused to offer farmers the Fair Trade alternative they so desperately need. Through subsequent national consumer advocacy, M&M/Mars has received an outpouring of requests for Fair Trade-- including more than 1,000 letters from schoolchildren, and over than 5,000 faxes and countless e-mails and phone calls from adults. In February of 2004, two coalitions of highly respected national organizations requested meetings with M&M/Mars to discuss Fair Trade purchasing, meetings which M&M/Mars unfortunately refused to hold. Despite such overwhelming appeals, M&M/Mars continues to refuse to offer Fair Trade chocolate, and reiterates total faith in the industry Protocol and other development projects. Despite the good intentions behind these efforts, none ensures the minimum price producers need, and none involves the independent certification that consumers want. Fair Trade incorporates all these components, offering the best way for M&M/Mars to realize the goals of the Protocol and maintain consumer support. Given M&M/Mars' continued lack of interest in selling Fair Trade chocolate and ensuring a decent life for farmers and their families, it is clear that we need to keep pushing for Fair Trade chocolate in growing numbers. Let's push for justice!