Fair Enough
April 11, 2008
On National Radio this week I heard an interview about human trafficking and the growth in human slavery across the world. Disturbing, appalling, sobering stuff. It has stuck with me all week and I felt I had to make some comment on it.
So many everyday products may well have been produced with some elements of slave labour. Without Fair Trade certification, any product from the developing world is suspect – even our cell phones and lap tops.
However, the interviewee specifically mentioned that the tea, coffee, chocolate, and to some extent sugar industries are rife with human slavery. One of the most important things we can do is buy fair trade brands like Scarborough Fair and Trade Aid.
We are all very price driven, and its certainly no different here at Domestically Blissed where I talk regularly about our ‘budget of doom’. But if saving a few cents means that your coffee could be made by slave labour, then we are hardly any better than the human traffickers themselves.
To learn more about Fair Trade visit the international fair trade labeling organisation .You can also listen to the interview that I heard by following this link and selecting the interview marked “World’s Fasted Growing Crime”
Entry Filed under: eco stuff. .
1.
henitsirk | April 11, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I think this is one of the problems of modern global society–we have a hard time knowing who made our stuff, and how, unless an “expert” or journalist finds out for us. Sometimes I wish we could just be local only…but then I would surely be missing my morning coffee. And I always have to remind myself that it’s false to think that people were ever solely local, except perhaps way back in neanderthal times. Even ancient people traded with other cultures. So now we just have to try to be as conscious as possible, knowing that every purchase affects many, many people.
2.
renaissancemama | April 11, 2008 at 1:27 pm
You’re so right. It some times pains me to pick up the more expensive product at the store in order to buy fair trade, but I see it as voting with my dollar- money some times speaks more clearly than anything else and I want to be loud and clear that I disapprove of things like slave labor.