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Human Traffic

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

Rachael Stace, with the support of Just Focus

Imagine being a child sold by your parents not knowing where you are going, or what lies ahead, the only thing you do know is that you will probably never see your family, your neighbourhood or anything that you have grown up with, and care about, ever again. Or imagine being a woman with no work and no money, leaving your home because of promises of a better life, just to find out that you have been sold into slavery.

Human trafficking is the movement or sale of people by others (called traffickers), often through the use of force, threats and violence, and with the purpose of exploiting the victim. It affects every continent and most countries, with approximately 2.5 million people trafficked every year.

2.5 million people, REALLY? 200 hundred years ago the British Empire put an end to the slave trade, so why, in today’s modern society, are people still bought and sold like commodities?

Living in poverty greatly increases your chance of being a victim of human trafficking. People who are struggling to survive and don’t have a lot of money are desperate for a way out and traffickers can, and do, exploit this, offering false promises of money and good jobs. Men and women who lack better options locally are persuaded by the prospect of better jobs in other regions or countries and agree to migrate. Parents may be offered a brighter and better life for their children, who they cannot afford to look after anyway, so they sell their children, hoping for a better future for them. Orphans are sold by orphanages to traffickers and sometimes children off the street are simply taken.

Human trafficking is at its most extreme during times of hardship such as natural disasters, for example droughts, famines, floods, earthquakes or tsunamis (eg: the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami) because when people, already dealing with poverty, are distressed or in panic they are at their most vulnerable. They are fooled or easily persuaded and when separated from their families are easy pickings for traffickers. Orphaned children especially are easily kidnapped.

Victims of human trafficking become slaves and are forced to do things such as hard physical labour, prostitution, become mail-order brides, work in the military forces (e.g.child soldiers), become domestic workers, fish in dangerous areas or work in factories or sweat shops.

Trafficking is worth about US$32 billion a year! The UN attribute the rapid rise in trafficking to globalisation, with the flow of information and better communications making it easier to lure poor people with unrealistic promises. Open borders in regions like Europe make it easier to move people around.

To try and fight trafficking the UN developed the Protocol Against Trafficking in Persons which was ratified in 2003 and signed by 117 countries. It makes trafficking an international crime. But law enforcement in many countries is ineffective and the punishment quite light. Trafficking is one of the world’s most lucrative crimes, with US$32 billion at stake, unfortunately the potential gain well outweighs the risks.

———————————————————————-
Sokha, Cambodia

Girls as young as five are trafficked from Cambodia over the border into Thailand. Sokha’s mother was ill with a liver complaint and the family needed money to pay for drugs to treat her and to buy land to build a home. Sokha and her friend Makara were sold to a trafficker who promised good jobs for them in Thailand. But reality turned out to be very different. Sokha explains how she and Makara were given jobs selling fruit, but with their bosses taking most of the money for themselves, they were not able to survive or send any money home. Soon their bosses forced them into sleeping with men to pay their way. Sokha’s mother died within a year, and with no more resources the family still couldn’t afford to buy land.

Fortunately their parents contacted a group, Cambodian Hope Organisation, who found and rescued the girls, bringing them back to their families and offering them support and training.

Not everyone is this lucky.

Source | Tearfund
———————————————————————

Human trafficking is a personal horror, a family’s misfortune, a community’s grief, a country’s despair and a world tragedy. All human beings are born equal, so why it is that some work and live in situations that are often too gruesome for others to even think about?

But we HAVE to think about it, because it affects us all. Even here in Aotearoa New Zealand. The globalisation process which makes trafficking easier, also means that products made by the victims could easily find their way onto your table, or into your wardrobe, through the chocolate you eat or the shoes you walk in. You may be contributing to the problem without even knowing it.

Don’t despair about the problem, take action and be part of the solution!! Check out the websites below to learn more about the issues and for some ideas on how to get involved.

Learn More

www.tradeaid.org.nz
www.stopthetraffik.org
www.antislavery.org
www.hrw.org
www.savethechildren.net

Take Action

Join Just Focus www.justfocus.org.nz
Get involved with Trade Aid’s campaign to fight modern slavery www.tradeaid.org.nz
Join Amnesty International and help fight all human rights abuses www.amnesty.org.nz
Watch Amazing Grace, a film which follows the life of William Wilberforce, the driving force behind the abolishing of the slave trade in the British Empire
Talk to your friends and family
Sign the petition at www.antislavery.org
Check out the international campaign at www.stopthetraffik.org

A version of this article was published in JET Magazine.

Tags: disasters, fair trade, poverty, slavery, Tearfund, trafficking
Posted in Articles, Economics & Trade, Global Themes, Human Rights & Social Justice, Take Action, Your Stories | No Comments »

Dressed to kill

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

By Hannah Newport

Excited doesn’t begin to describe how Jimmy’s feeling right now. He’s holding those pants like their God’s greatest gift, and he aint lettin’ go. ‘Thanks Mum!’ he cries. ‘I mean, um, cheers… you can go now.’

Little Jimmy thinks that the snaz new pair of Dickies his adoring mother has just purchased is going to solve all his problems. He truly believes. Finally no more spit-ball sandwiches from those dastardly 6th formers. No more childish treatment from the aloof and awe-inspiring 7th formers and certainly no more sickening pity from the teachers. Who knows, the girl with the pretty pig tails from science class might even smile at him.

Jimmy may be deluding himself just a little, but how many of us do the same thing? How many of us feel our adolescent problems will be solved by the power of a logo or a look’? A bit of retail therapy will calm our self-conscious nerves! We’ll happily pay the price for a branded t-shirt if it’s going to help us fit in with the crowd. We’re hooked on sweet, sticky conformism, and boy does it taste good.

But while expensive items tailor our ‘personal look’ (to be like everyone else’s), and boost young Jimmy’s cred, what are your clothes saying about you? And what’s the true story behind the labels we love?

The reality is most clothes we buy were made in overseas factories, usually in developing countries where work is done in extremely foul conditions. Workers are often teenagers and women who are low paid and treated badly by employers. How ironic that some of the garments they make to survive are then bought by children and teenagers on a whim. We are all in danger of letting the right label or ‘look’ take over our own sense of identity or, even more frighteningly, our sense of morals.

Most Kiwi brands have stopped printing ‘Made In New Zealand’ on their labels, and now manufacture in China instead. It doesn’t take a genius to infer this is cost motivated. Profit wins out over supporting local products and concern about the transporting costs upon the environment.

But hidden among the wonderful sea of apathetic youth that we are, are the odd students who break the stereotype; they’re actually thinking about life, the universe, and clothes. They’re few and far between, but isn’t that always the way?

Susie Harcourt, has been working as a volunteer at Trade Aid for more than a year now.
‘I’d say teens are more materialistic than ever,’ she says. ‘And also there’s more material to be materialistic about. People have money, children have money, and the advertising is more than ever before.’

‘Most kids probably don’t know; don’t particularly want to know. Don’t really care. A lot of people are aware of it, but they sort of feel that it’s not their position to do anything about it.’

And often, it’s not even as clear cut as knowing about it, or not. There’s this whole other grey area, where un-conformist and ‘cool’ overlap. ‘Fashion isn’t just about clothes, it’s often about ideas. The fashion when I came to high school was to buy organic food, buy fair trade shoes, things like that. But then when it went out, suddenly a lot of people who cared about that stuff suddenly stopped caring about it, because it went out of fashion.’

‘People do have this thing on the surface, where they want to be seen as having a social conscience, want to be seen as standing up for things. They want to be seen to be ‘good people’, basically. But that doesn’t extend into the way they live their lives.’

So what can we do? Susie volunteers at Trade Aid. Others, like Steph Cairns vent their individuality on a sewing machine. ‘There’s lots of reason for making your own clothes. Number one is that it’s just cheaper. I’m a poor student, so it’s the best thing. And basically you’re not taking part in the whole capitalist machine. If you’re doing your own thing and making your own clothes then you’re not taking part in the cycle of exploitation. Some people don’t have an understanding of how much work goes into something. Maybe that’s why they don’t care so much about slave labour.’

Whether it’s taking to fabric with a pair of scissors, or carving your own style through donating time to a cause, it’s about expressing yourself; stepping away from the clothes that ‘everyone’ wears and from what they represent.

And the ultimate example, both Susie and Stephanie agree, is the use of Che Guevara’s image in popular culture. ‘People think they’re being so revolutionary by wearing this image on this t-shirt, but they don’t even know what it means,’ agrees Stephanie. These clothes or items that are sold to us, in countries like NZ, have usually been made in sweatshops. ‘Che Guevara was working for a world where people weren’t oppressed like that, and didn’t have to work for someone else’s profit. It’s sort of like this phoney radicalism. Just the fact that they’re wearing it on a t-shirt; it’s the most hypocritical thing, and nobody realises.’

While the masses are dressed to kill, a few among us question why someone you have never met is making some very personal decisions for you, about the shoes on your feet and the way of the world. All in the name of profit.

But hasn’t it always just taken a few to lead the way to change?
‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’ Margaret Mead

Learn More:

Take Action:

Make your own clothes
Volunteer your time, eg at Trade Aid
Find out more about your own jeans brand, or Google where your t-shirt was made
Write to your favourite shop and tell them you love their stuff but want it to be fairly traded
Go op-shopping / buy second-hand stuff

A version of this article was originally published in JET magazine.

Tags: consumerism, fair trade, sweat shops
Posted in Articles, Culture & Society, Economics & Trade, Global Themes, Human Rights & Social Justice, Take Action | No Comments »

Sweet as sin

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

By Nicole Mathewson

Pebbles Mmmm. A sugar rush. You can’t beat it eh? But how much sugar do we consume? A lot more than just what we add to our tea or cereal. What about all those fizzy drinks, lollies and cakes? And it doesn’t end there - sugar is a staple ingredient in most processed foods including savoury ready-made meals. Globally, sugar consumption increases by about 2% per year, and is currently around 150 million tons!

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down?
With so much sugar, you’d be forgiven for not being able to imagine a life without it. But did you know humans evolved without ever using it? The only kinds of sugar we need to remain healthy are lactose (found in milk) and fructose (fruits, vegetables and anything naturally nutritious). The kind of sugar we’ve come to know and love, though, is sucrose (aka sugar, refined from sugar cane or beet).

Sucrose was gradually introduced to our taste buds over time. It began innocently enough in the 1700s with a teaspoon or two in tea, but by the end of the century consumption had more than trebled. It has continued to increase worldwide ever since.

We have become so used to sugar that many people forget sucrose is just “empty calories” — it has no nutritional value. Medical problems associated with over-consumption of sucrose include obesity, increased chronic fatigue, anxiety, irritability and possibly serious mental conditions. [1] Scary huh? And this isn’t just happening in rich countries — it is also occurring in the developing world, and faster than ever.

“The consumption of sugar still goes up despite all the fanatical attacks from health cranks,” smugly says Sir Saxon Tate, boss of British sugar giant, Tate and Lyle.

A less than sweet industry
Sugar Cane Harvesting As well as being terrible for our bodies, and almost addictive, sugar also widens the gap between the world’s rich and poor.

From the beginning, the sugar industry has not been nearly as sweet as the product. Sugar production was a big part of the slave trade, funded the expansion of European empires and put much of the original capital into capitalism.

Inequality is still rife today. For example, British Sugar’s majority shareholders, the Weston Family, receive NZ$76,700 a day from their shares, while Bekele, a typical sugar cane cutter in Ethiopia, earns less than NZ$3 a day. [2]

The power of the sugar giants
In the 1970s some companies in the sugar industry, and some which heavily used sugar in their products (e.g. soft drinks manufacturers) banded together and established various foundations’ and institutes’ which used their influence to undermine or silence any reports linking sugar with health problems. [3]

“The sugar industry has learned from the tricks of the tobacco industry,” says Professor Philip James, chairman of a national dietary guidelines committee in the UK. “Confuse the public. Produce experts who disagree. Try to dilute the message.” In the same way that oil companies deny climate change sugar companies try to persuade us that their product is not damaging.

And in New Zealand we can see the influence of these companies. Plans to remove full-sugar drinks from secondary schools have been criticised because the agreement between the Government and two of the biggest beverage companies won’t come into effect till 2009 and still allows diet drinks which can contain caffeine and artificial sweeteners which are hardly healthy. Green MP Sue Kedgley sees it as a public relations move. Children will still be exposed to “nutritionless, enamel-destroying soft drinks with addictive and controversial additives in them”, she said. [4]

Environmental concerns
Sugar plantations are harmful to the environment, being to blame for the loss of huge areas of fertile land (which could be used for growing food for local people, rather crops for export) and reducing water levels. After sixty years of sugar production in Pakistan there has been a 90 percent reduction of freshwater available. Pesticide spraying is also a problem, with twenty five million cases of serious chemical poisoning each year.[5]

It’s not all bad though. You’ve heard of Fair Trade chocolate and coffee, but you might not know you can get fairly-traded sugar too from Paraguay, available from Trade Aid stores. And it’s organic too, so no nasty pesticides were used. The most obvious way to escape from being caught in the sugar trap is to simply eat more fresh fruit and vegetables! You’ll gradually regain control over your appetite and eventually realise you don’t really need sugar at all — but if you must, try to make it fairly traded. Sweet!

Brown Sugar

Did you know?
A can (330ml) of regular soft drink contains up to 10 teaspoons of sugar.

We are the 11th biggest soft-drink consumers in the world.
Worldwide, about a billion people are chronically overweight and, on the flip side, a billion are chronically hungry.
Ethanol is a sugar-based fuel produced by fermenting cane juice. It is clean burning and can be used to fuel vehicles on its own, or mixed with petrol or diesel. Brazil has saved hundreds of millions of dollars by using ethanol rather than importing fuel, and other countries could do the same.
Mauritius in the Indian Ocean generates nearly half its electricity from bagasse (the crushed stalks of the sugar cane plant, after cane juice has been extracted for sugar production), and other countries, including Pacific islands such as Fiji could potentially do the same.

Learn more:
Read the New Internationalist magazine on The Sugar Trap

Take Action:

Join Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign
Be aware of what you’re eating and where it came from.
Encourage others to take notice too.
Write to your local supermarket to ask them to stock Fair Trade sugar.

References:

[1] http://live.newint.org/issue363/perilous.htm
[2] http://www.maketradefair.com/en/index.php?file=sugar_pr06.htm
[3] http://live.newint.org/issue363/keynote.htm
[4] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10414952
[5] http://environment.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,,1932189,00.html

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A version of this article was originally published in JET magazine.

Tags: agriculture, corporations, fair trade, health, Media, pollution, poverty, slavery, water
Posted in Articles, Culture & Society, Economics & Trade, Environment, Global Themes, Take Action | No Comments »

Dressed to kill

Friday, October 6th, 2006

Hannah Newport

Excited doesn’t begin to describe how Jimmy’s feeling right now. He’s holding those pants like their God’s greatest gift, and he aint lettin’ go. “Thanks Mum!” he cries. “I mean, um, cheers… you can go now.”

Little Jimmy thinks that the snaz new pair of Dickies his adoring mother has just purchased is going to solve all his problems. He truly believes. Finally no more spit-ball sandwiches from those dastardly 6th formers. No more childish treatment from the aloof and awe-inspiring 7th formers and certainly no more sickening pity from the teachers. Who knows, the girl with the pretty pig tails from science class might even smile at him.

Jimmy may be deluding himself just a little, but how many of us do the same thing? How many of us feel our adolescent problems solved by the power of a logo or a look’? A bit of retail therapy will calm our self-conscious nerves! We’ll happily pay the price for a branded t-shirt if it’s going to help us fit in with the crowd. We’re hooked on sweet, sticky conformism, and boy does it taste good.

But while expensive items tailor our “personal look” (to be like with everyone else’s), and boost young Jimmy’s cred, what do they really mean? Even those of us less creatively dressed are judged on our appearance. So what are your clothes saying about you? And what’s the true story behind the labels we love?

More often than one would like to believe, the clothes we buy in NZ were made in a factory where the conditions are hard and workers are not allowed to bargain collectively in unions. And many of the workers are teenagers. There’s a vague awareness of this among teenagers, but it’s just not a priority when it has no noticeably direct impact on our own lives.

So, things look rather unenthusiastic for the ethics of tomorrow. Or do they? Hidden among the wonderful sea of apathetic youth are the odd students who break the stereotype; they’re actually thinking about life, the universe, and clothes. They’re few and far between, but so are red M & M’s.

“I’ve never wanted Chuck Tailors,” says one such rule-breaking individual. Susie Harcourt, a Wellington 7th former tells sweatshops where to go, on a regular basis. She’s been working as a volunteer at Trade Aid for more than a year now, and yes, she knows a thing or two about this and that.

“I’d say teens are more materialistic than ever,” she says. “And also there’s more material to be materialistic about. People do have money, children do have money, and the advertising is more than ever before.”

“We see groups of 8 girls who have little variations, but mainly looked just the same. And with girls it’s more obvious, but then you look at boys as well; you think about it, and you look at it properly, and it’s like- you all look exactly the same!” Aha, so it’s about being part of the crowd. We are all in danger of letting the right label or “look” take over our own sense of identity or, even more frighteningly, our sense of morals.

Decades ago now, many NZ stores, including Glassons and Hallensteins, stopped printing “Made In New Zealand” on their labels as they began to manufacture overseas instead. It doesn’t take a genius to work out this was cost motivated. Profit won out over supporting local products (and therefore employment) and ignored the environmental damage caused by international transportation.

Enter individual number two. When it comes to matters of an un-conformist nature, Stephanie Cairns (best known as the keyboardist from rock quest band “Cybersex on Mars”). has got an opinion all right.

“People are just lazy,” she says. “They’re easily brainwashed and they’re easily persuaded. When you see a cheap shirt that you like, you want to buy it, because it’s cheap.”

Most people avoid thinking about the conditions the clothes they buy were made in. “A lot of people are aware of it, but they sort of feel that it’s not their position to do anything about it.”

And often, it’s not even as clear cut as knowing about it or not. There’s this whole other grey area, where un-conformist and “cool” overlap. “Fashion isn’t just about clothes, it’s often about ideas. The fashion when I started a high school was to buy organic food, buy fair trade shoes, things like that. But then when it went out, suddenly a lot of people who cared about that stuff suddenly stopped caring about it because it went out of fashion.”

“It’s sort of like when those wristbands that came out that said, “Make Poverty History” on them and they were made by sweatshop labour,” remembers Stephanie. “People do have this thing on the surface, where they want to be seen as having a social conscience, want to be seen as standing up for things. They want to be seen to be “good people”, basically. But that doesn’t extend into the way they live their lives.”

It could be a little daunting, for a first-time freethinker: How do I show that I care, without showing that I want to show I care? Bit of a paradox. Perhaps the key is just playing a common-sense game of “match the pair”, between the issues that you care about, and the manner in which you support them. Is buying a candy cane from New World really going to help dentistry in the Middle East?

The ultimate hypocrisy, both young women agree, is the use of Guevara’s image in popular culture. “Have you seen my t-shirt that says, “Che Guevara is not a fashion accessory?” asks Stephanie.

“People think they’re being so revolutionary by wearing this image on this t-shirt, but they don’t even know what it means,” agrees Stephanie. These clothes or items that are sold to us, in countries like NZ, have been made in sweatshops.

“Che Guevara was working for a world where people weren’t oppressed like that, and didn’t have to work for someone else’s profit. It’s sort of like this phoney radicalism. Just the fact that they’re wearing it on a t-shirt; it’s the most hypocritical thing, and nobody realises.”

We’ve hit the nail on the head. Sure, it is ironic that in our efforts to “fit in” we’ve ended up looking like clone teens. But the ultimate irony can be found in the manufactured ideas, which we buy into with each purchase, then sell on again when the fad ends.

For a few though, it’s frustration at this hypocrisy that sparks alternative antics. Nothing drastic, just little variations to keep the sanity. For Susie, it’s her volunteer shift at Trade Aid. Steph, on the other hand, vents her individuality on a sewing machine. “There’s lots of reason for making your own clothes. Number one is that it’s just cheaper. Basically, I’m a poor student, so it’s the best thing. And another reason is basically you’re not taking part in the whole capitalist machine. If you’re doing your own thing and making your own clothes then you’re not taking part in the cycle of exploitation.”

Whether it’s taking to fabric with a pair of scissors, or carving your own style through donating time to a cause, it’s about expressing yourself; stepping away from the clothes that “everyone” wears and from what they represent.

And while the masses are dressed to kill, these individuals among us question. What they’re finding out is not altogether comforting; a profiteer you’ve never met has made some very personal decisions for you; decisions about the shoes on your feet and the way of the world. But after all, hasn’t it always just taken a few individuals to lead the way to change?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

LEARN MORE

Trade Aid
No Sweat Apparel American company No Sweat says it “defines the market for goods that support independent trade unions - the only historically proven solution to sweatshops”.
The Fair Trade Foundation (UK)
The Good Shopping Guide (UK)
www.ethicalconsumer.org
Make Poverty History in NZ

Global Issues magazine 15 (July 2005) “Trade: A Fair Journey?”

An interesting article on the web about things being made in China called “A Life Without China” . It’s about New Zealand-based reporter Mandy Herrick who renounces Chinese-made goods for a month to reveal the depths of our growing dependence on the mega-factory of the world.

TAKE ACTION!

Make your own clothes
Volunteer your time, eg at Trade Aid
Find out more about your own jeans brand, or Google where your t-shirt was made
Write to your favourite shop and tell them you love their stuff but want it to be fairly traded
Go op-shopping / buy second-hand stuff

Photos of Susie and Stpehanie by Hannah Newport.

Tags: consumerism, corporations, Environment, fair trade, identity, Media, sweat shops, unions, volunteer, youth activism
Posted in Articles, Economics & Trade, Human Rights & Social Justice, Take Action, Your Stories | No Comments »

Ethical business - an impossible dream?

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006

Corinna Howland

Money and morals. It appears that, in a capitalist society, you have to sacrifice one for the other. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Or coffee for that matter.

So how can we bring the two together? Matt Lamason, 27, founder of Peoples Coffee in Wellington, seems to have hit on the magic formula. His business sells only fair-trade coffee, which means that the coffee beans are sourced directly from growers who pay their employees a fair wage, “The fair trade mark sets a base wage for coffee growers, which means that the growers have extra money in the hand… This means that they will have a better standard of living, better buildings, a chance at an education for themselves and their children. Basically fair-trade means a better deal for the people who produce the coffee”, Matt says.

Fair Trade items are easily recognizable by the fair-trade logo on the back of the packet, which ensures that the product is produced in accordance with Fair Trade ideals, namely a fair wage (enough money to live on and to accrue savings), good working conditions and sustainability.

What is Fair Trade?
The concept of Fair Trade was formulated in the early nineties, and is becoming recognizable world-wide, through campaigns such as Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair, and more recently the Chocolate Kisses campaign. (For more information, see www.oxfam.org). Despite these efforts, in Matt’s opinion, Fair Trade in New Zealand is still viewed as an alternative or left-wing’ phenomenon, “I think Fair Trade is still associated with bleeding heart liberals or extreme lefties”.

However, through Fair Trade companies such as Peoples Coffee, consumers are being given options that they have not been given before. It is the consumer’s ability to choose Fair Trade coffee that has set this company apart from the rest.

Although the idea of so-called ethical business’ is not new, with established companies such as Trade Aid on the scene for more than a decade, Peoples Coffee is the first home-grown fair-trade business of its kind in New Zealand. Since its opening, Peoples Coffee has enjoyed a steadily-growing customer base, which Matt attributes to increased consumer-consciousness, “Customers do want to know where their products are coming from, which is extremely powerful. At this stage however, New Zealand is ten to twelve years behind the UK in terms of consumer-consciousness”. Although currently only in a fledgling state in New Zealand, consumer-consciousness has meant that there is a growing market for Fair Trade products, which is great for Matt’s company.

So, how has Peoples Coffee managed to remain ethical and yet still turn a profit? Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding, “At the end of the day, people want a great espresso. For some customers Fair Trade is a bonus, but if the coffee was shite, people would not be coming here.”

LEARN MORE

Peoples Coffee
Trade Aid
Oxfam
Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand FTAANZ

TAKE ACTION!

buy Fair Trade coffee — available at the Peoples Coffee Roastery in Constable Street, Newtown, Wellington and at various cafés around the country — find out where from FTAANZ
buy your coffee (and chocolate, and other items) from Trade Aid
ask your favourite café to sell Fair Trade certified coffee
join Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign by signing up on their website
get involved in the upcoming Just Focus Fair Trade Chocolate campaign
start your own ethical business!

Photos kindly provided by Matt Lamason.

Tags: consumerism, education and training, fair trade, Oxfam, Peoples Coffee, sustainability, Trade Aid
Posted in Aid & Development, Articles, Economics & Trade, Human Rights & Social Justice, Take Action | No Comments »

The bitter side of chocolate

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006

Eva Lawrence, Just Focus Coordinator

Whether you are a whitey, darkie, nutty or gooey on the inside what we all have in common is that we love chocolate. Oh chocolate, it is one of those rare pleasures that releases endorphins and keeps us coming back for more… well enough on that.

When you find out about where chocolate comes from and the unfair conditions that people experience to bring us that magic bar, it can leave a nasty bitter taste in your mouth.

Chocolate comes from the cocoa bean and is produced tropical countries. Most of the world’s cocoa is grown in West Africa — the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and the Cameroon. Almost half of the cocoa worldwide comes from the Ivory Coast.

Conditions for people working on cocoa farms are often terrible. Poverty is extreme, hours long and tasks unsafe. Child labour is common on cocoa farms, and these children often lack any chance of gaining an education as they are working from a young age.

In the Ivory Coast slavery is also occurring. Children and young men, many from neighbouring Mali are being sold or tricked into slavery. Child slaves are forced to work long hours, are underfed and of course, not paid. They are kept in inhuman conditions — often locked in at night so they can’t run away. Those that do try to escape are physically punished.

Chocolate in New Zealand

Cadburys claim to source their cocoa from Ghana and Malaysia
Whittakers claim to source their cocoa from Ghana
Nestle source their cocoa from a number of countries including the Ivory Coast.

(Source: Oxfam)

Bitter Ingredients
Cocoa prices are unfair and unstable on the international market. A small number of multinational corporations control the market and exploit the need of poor farmers to have an income — once the crop is grown a low price is better that no price. Therefore exporters are competing for sales by offering the lowest prices. This means that farmers have few options other than paying their workers low wages.

Cocoa makes up a significant part of the income of some West African Countries. For the Ivory Coast for example, approximately one third of the national income comes from cocoa. Cash cropping has replaced the diverse and locally sustaining farming of the past. This means that the population is dependent on earning money from international markets to earn money to be able to buy food. Cash cropping, as well and removing the independence of communities, also creates vulnerability of economic collapse due to natural disasters, pests and crop disease.

Poverty, as always, is a huge factor in the unfair conditions. Most of the enslaved workers come from Mali, which is one of the poorest countries in the world. Young people hoping for work in neighbouring countries have been easy prey for child traffickers.

The sweeter side - Fairtrade
There is a positive side to this story though. Fairtrade cooperatives have been set up for cocoa growing in a number of countries. With fairtrade, farms are guaranteed a fair price for their cocoa and the workers receive a fair wage. Fairtrade certification forbids the use of slave labour or children working if it interferes with their education or in dangerous conditions. Furthermore, money is paid to invest in developing the community and schools

Global Links
Chocolate, which is so associated with positive stuff here in Aotearoa New Zealand, is directly linked with a whole lot of very negative stuff in some poor countries. It is a clear illustration of the link between us all in this globalised world. As is the case in many trade situations, we in the west gain goods from the labour of those in developing countries The good thing about this link is that we can do something about it.

There is no need to give up your chocolate addiction, but there are a number of things you can do to make chocolate sweeter for everyone.

TAKE ACTION!

Join the fair-trade chocolate campaign!
Fairtrade Fortnight goes from April 29 to May 13 2006— Get involved
Write to your favourite chocolate company and tell them you want them to use fair-trade cocoa
Buy fair-trade chocolate — available from Trade Aid and some health food stores.

LEARN MORE

Oxfam
Fairtrade Association of Australia and New Zealand
Trade Aid
globalexchange
divinechocolate
fairtrade.org.uk
antislavery.org

This article was originally published in Jet magazine in the Focus column. All photos courtesy of Oxfam.

Tags: Africa, agriculture, child labour, chocolate, corporations, education and training, fair trade, poverty, slavery, sustainability, Trade Aid, trafficking
Posted in Articles, Culture & Society, Economics & Trade, Global Headlines, Human Rights & Social Justice, News, Take Action | No Comments »

Beyond fair trade - brewing hope

Friday, April 7th, 2006

Grace Leung

The Fair Trade movement has been growing significantly over the years and many more cafes and shops now sell fair trade coffee. However, a campus group at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, called “Brewing Hope” works to take a step beyond fair trade by creating relationships between consumers and the communities which grow and harvest their coffee. Brewing Hope buys coffee directly from the autonomous, Zapatista-affiliated coffee cooperative Yachil in Chiapas, Mexico. Taking Fair Trade a step further, Brewing Hope organizes exchanges programs. It brings coffee farmers and cooperative members from Chiapas to Ann Arbor to teach communities about their struggles for autonomy and freedom. Conversely, Brewing Hope brings delegates from Ann Arbor to Chiapas to learn about the stories behind their daily cup of joe.

In July 2005, I was one of 12-person delegation to visit San Cristobal de las Casas and nearby communities in Chiapas.

Our visit included meeting with local and international social and economic justice groups ranging from Chiapas Peace House (an organization that supports overseas volunteers) to CEDICI (a research and advocacy group that investigates into the Mexican military’s oppression of autonomous communities). We visited a vocational training school for indigenous youth so we could see how the next generation acquires skills to bring back to their communities, so that they may be autonomous and independent of government agencies.

We were also fortunate enough to stay the night in Chixilon with a community affiliated with Las Abejas, a non-violent group with similar principles to the Zapatistas. In accordance with the community’s needs, we brought with us medical supplies and other provisions to improve their water storage system. We also visited Acteal, a community who lost 45 members to an attack by paramilitaries, with the aid of the Mexican military, in 1997. It is highly likely that the attack was a response to the community’s quest for autonomy and independence from a corrupt government. We were all deeply inspired by the determination for true justice, and rebellious dignity of the people that we met at Acteal.

One particular woman at Acteal, who had introduced us to the women’s handicraft cooperative, recounted the murder of her brother and father in the 1997 massacre. Speaking only her native tongue of Tzetzal at the time, the event provoked her to learn Spanish, make contacts in nearby cities and organize a women’s handicrafts cooperative to revive and bring economic independence to her community.

Despite the benefits of Fair Trade, many potentials remain to be fulfilled. Indeed, despite getting the certified fair trade price of US$1.26 per pound of unroasted coffee beans, the community that we visited must still walk up to 2 hours to the nearest source of marginally potable water in the dry season. Moreover, with the global price of coffee rising, Fair Trade prices are beginning to be less lucrative for farmers, many of whom are tempted to avoid the processes of fair trade and cooperative participation and selling to middlemen (locally called coyotes) instead. Although in the short term, this means less work for the farmers, it leads to the loss of their Fair Trade certification and leaves them vulnerable to the price fluctuations determined by the coyotes.

Because of the recovering prices of conventional coffee on the international market, the next few years will be testing for the Fair Trade communities to continue to comply with the Fair Trade regulations. Many communities also face labour shortages due to the migration of young people to urban areas in search of waged labour. These were some of the concerns that the community shared with us that consumers usually give limited thought

The delegation provided a valuable opportunity for a reciprocal interaction between consumers and coffee growers, the complexities of which go far beyond a cup of coffee. Visits like ours are a small but significant way of showing solidarity with people struggling for justice and freedom. Perhaps this is a future direction for the Fair Trade movement, one in which the consumer looks beyond the latte in their hands and indeed, all goods, creating a new global economy which brings consumers and producers together in the fight for justice and sustainability.

TAKE ACTION!

Oxfam’s campaign for fair trade

Thursday, September 22nd, 2005

Nicole Mathewson

What do Chris Martin (Coldplay), Thom Yorke (Radiohead), Antonio Banderas and Alanis Morrisette have in common with a sack of corn? Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign. Corn is one of the exports being dumped on celebrities’ heads to draw attention to the unfair trade practices of rich countries.

What’s It All About?
The campaign by Oxfam International and it’s twelve associate agencies calls on governments, institutions and multinational companies to change their rules so trade can become part of the solution to poverty, not part of the problem.

Farmers in developing countries could work themselves out of poverty by selling their products to wealthy countries at a reasonable price.

So what’s stopping them?
The appalling unfairness of the current world trade system.

Legislation regarding trade follows the idea that one size fits all. Unfortunately many farmers in developing countries are smallholders - struggling to earn a living with unstable ecological conditions, high transport costs and little government support. They also have to compete with subsidised farmers from places like the U.S. and the European Union dumping surplus crops in their countries.

So Why Are Celebrities Involved?
The point of using celebrities in the campaign is to attract people’s attention, says Oxfam New Zealand’s advocacy and campaigns manager Shuna Lennon. “[It's] like a giant billboard. If Chris Martin says look at this’ you’re more likely to than if I said it.”

In the photo shoot Chris Martin is covered in rice, representing the surplus dumping on poor countries by the United States. The U.S. government pays it’s farmers $1billion a year to over-produce rice and dump the surplus at extremely low prices in poor countries. One fifth of the population of Haiti has been driven out of business and into poverty as a result.

Ms Lennon says the United States hasn’t stopped unfair trade, but is under enormous pressure to make a change for the better. So we’re just keeping the pressure on and hoping there will be a breakthrough, she said.

Oxfam’s next big protest will be targeting the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Hong Kong in December. Oxfam would like to see the WTO deliver a pro-development plan as an outcome of the meeting. This would ensure wealthy countries stop export dumping and remove barriers to trade to allow developing countries to decide their own trade policies that will work for them.

According to Oxfam, New Zealand has a potentially important role, as Kiwi, Tim Grosser, is the Chair of the WTO agriculture negotiations. However, our influence may not be good for poorer countries, as the New Zealand government’s view has typically been in favour of the one-size fits all trade liberalisation

TAKE ACTION!

Those interested in making a difference can help in a variety of ways, firstly by signing the Big Noise petition . There are seven million signatures already and they’re hoping to reach ten million by December, Ms Lennon said.

Fair trade items, such as coffee, chocolate and tea, are available in New Zealand at Trade Aid outlets and participating supermarkets. You can help the fight by buying fair trade products and asking retailers to stock them, this will show them the demand is there.

You can also check out Oxfam New Zealand and sign up for their e-newsletter to receive updates on Oxfam’s campaigns.

LEARN MORE

Oxfam New Zealand
Make Trade Fair
Trade Aid

Tags: Activism, agriculture, fair trade, international law, legislation, Oxfam, poverty
Posted in Activism, Articles, Economics & Trade, Human Rights & Social Justice, Media, Take Action | No Comments »

Delicious Dilemma - The Issue with Coffee

Monday, August 8th, 2005

Coffee Graham Smout

Mmmmm! That smooth Espresso taste, but where does it come from and what hardships do people go through to give you the coffee that you know and love?

Coffee is produced in Latin America, the Caribbean, in Asia and in Africa. The main producer is Brazil which produces about a quarter of the world’s coffee.

Since the early 1950’s, these countries have been persuaded by buyers to give up farming more traditional crops in favour to producing coffee. This has lead to overproduction, plummeting market prices and sweatshop working conditions.

Coffee prices in 2003 were at an all time low. The market price for 500g of coffee was NZD $0.80 but the same amount of coffee sold for about NZD $15.00 in the shops!

Despite the incredibly harsh working conditions, producers receive none of this massive profit margin.

Buy fair trade
As a consumer you have a choice. You can either buy “free trade coffee” for a cheaper price, and which has been produced under sweat shop conditions, or you can pay a little more and buy “fair trade coffee”.

Fair trade coffee allows farmers to receive enough money from their crops for them to survive and not fall into poverty.

A recent survey has shown that around half of the coffee producers in Guatemala only receive about NZD $6.00 a day for picking about 45 kilograms of coffee!

Fair trade requires that all producers earn at least NZD $5.00 for every kilo of coffee produced.

So next time you decide to grab a quick espresso or mochachino, think of those poverty stricken farmers and buy “fair trade coffee!”

LEARN MORE

Global Exchange: Fair Trade Coffee
Trade Aid: Fair Trade

TAKE ACTION!

Find Fair Trade suppliers in your area :Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand: Fair Trade Product Finder and
Trade Aid: Where to buy fair trade
Next time you drink coffee, make sure it’s fair trade. If they don’t have it in your local cafe… ask that they start serving it. Do the same in your supermarket — ask the management to stock fair trade coffee, tea and chocolate for starters.
Buy a bar of Fair Trade chocolate as a present.
Show your support for Fair Trade by encouraging friends and family to buy Fair Trade products.
Fair Trade is more than coffee and cocoa. Many products are being made under fair working conditions. Check out more of our articles on fair trade.

This article was written as part of Global Focus, a collaborative project of Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It was first published in Tearaway magazine and is reprinted here with their permission

Photographer: Eva Lawrence

Tags: agriculture, coffee, fair trade, free trade, poverty, sweat shops
Posted in Articles, Economics & Trade, Take Action | No Comments »

Branded Identity

Thursday, March 3rd, 2005

Jenah Shaw

Hoodies or miniskirts, ugg boots or sport shoes — whatever your wardrobe looks like, there’s no denying that we carry a sense of self-expression in our clothes, something to give the world a sense of “us”.

If you’re looking for that defining look you can find it in any number of retail clothes shops, and in the world of branded clothing.

Brands and labels are no longer just a name to accompany a purchase, but are an integral part of identity. Which ones you associate with (or don’t for the non-conformists out there), which are the trendiest as of five minutes ago, and the kind of status they represent — it’s all part of the image.

It can seem somewhat fake to just ride the trends — to buy pre-ripped clothes for that vintage look, or to dress punk with no understanding of the culture or music — but in a generation dominated by image and appearance, imitating what is seen in magazines and on TV has become second nature.

With so much importance placed on looks and style, it’s hardly surprising corporations and their market researchers have latched onto the connection between image and identity. And are milking it for all it’s worth.

“Yeah, but is it me’?”
Today’s marketers and retailers are selling ideas, subcultures and attitudes as much as they are selling products. The reality is: these subcultures, ideas and attitudes are invented in boardrooms. And once created, we’ll happily pay huge prices to become part of them.

We aren’t so naive that we don’t know this, but we still buy into it. Why? It might be to flaunt how much we can afford to pay for a single item of clothing, but much more likely is the comfort of associating with a brand, and what’s essentially a pre-packaged identity.

They’re identities which have been created by marketers, who, through various advertising techniques, try to capture that identity people will want to buy into.

Anti-cool is the new cool
Slogans and brand identities capture feelings and attitudes, wants and desires — the sort of thing (they hope) will be desirable among their target audiences. The fact is, in many cases, the target audience in the crosshairs is us — that 12-19 year old consumer group with all the disposable cash.
Glassons has “Wear It Your Way”, suggesting control is with the buyer, who wears it “their way”, thus creating their own identity and gaining self-empowerment — with a little help from their friends at the local Glassons outlet that is (who, by the by, are happily making the profit).

Nike has “Just Do It”, encouraging ideas of independence and spontaneity, and Adidas’s “All Day I Dream about Sport” is all about passion and athleticism.

Then there’s the suburban princess of darkness, Emily Strange, whose character has spawned a line of clothing and merchandise ranging from t-shirts to Thin Lizzy dolls. She is “anti-cool” her website claims, “a subculture of one, and a follower of no-one but herself. She is the anti-hero for the Do It Yourself movement!”

Yeah, and you can be a part of it by buying one of a million or so mass-produced t-shirts. Every slogan and brand identity — with the help of advertising and merchandising — creates a look and attitude that we’re encouraged to be part of.

Take your Mum’s advice — be yourself.
So much more is being sold than just a product, and brands of increasing expense (although not necessarily quality) come with increasing exclusiveness and reputation.

It’s easy to see how brands and labels can become status symbols for whoever wears them, indications of wealth and style — something, society tells us, we all want. So they’re attractive, these carefully planned and strategised illusions, but real identity is much, much more.

Whatever feeling is created, the important thing to remember is brands are in it for the money.
Besides, style is not what you wear, but how you wear it.

FIND OUT MORE

No Logo, Naomi Klein (book)
Branded: The buying and selling of teenagers, Alissa Quart (book)
The New Rulers of the World, John Pilger (video)
antipreneur.org
Adbusters
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Trade Aid
Global Issues

TAKE ACTION!

Go op shopping. Ah, the thrill of the find and the pride of a bargain. Because a lot of op shop items have been sitting in grandpa’s wardrobe for forty years, much of it precedes the move toward cheap and nasty labour. And more often than not, it’s one of a kind. Cheap too!
Make your own stuff. Who knows, it could be the beginning of a career in fashion design. Not only do you have complete control over what goes on your t-shirts/pants/hoodies, you know exactly who was exploited in the making. And I hear knitting is hip again.
Go Black Spot. This is a new anti-brand movement started by US magazine and anti-The Man force Adbusters. Their mission appears to be to take down Converse founder Phil Knight, and their first action is their Black Spot sneakers. They look just like Converse sneakers, but instead of the Converse symbol have a black spot representing their rejection of brands. SEE: adbusters.org
Seek out fresh talent. If the sewing machine is a bit intimidating for ya, try hunting down an up and coming designer. There are heaps of new boutique fashion stores opening up in the cities with young designers begging to see their work on the frames of hip young things like yerselves. The clothing is generally made in bedrooms and home workshops for the love of it.

This article was written as part of Global Focus a collaborative project of Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It was first published in Tearaway magazine and is reprinted here with their permission

Illustrator; Rebecca ter Borg

Tags: consumerism, fair trade, identity, Media, recycling, tv, youth
Posted in Articles, Culture & Society, Media, Take Action | No Comments »