I recently spent a semester on the Gustavus Social Justice, Peace and Development study abroad program in India. I learned a lot about justice in our world, but looking back on my experiences, one issue sticks out in my mind as one in which we all can make a difference. This is the issue of child labor. I came in contact with child laborers during my time in India—children working in cotton fields and selling cheap necklaces; and I realized that when I buy a product, I rarely think about who made the product and under what conditions. The reality is, with over 250 million child laborers worldwide, many of the products we buy each day could be made under unjust circumstances.
It can be extremely easy to simply go to the mall or the grocery store, pick whatever shirt or brand of coffee is your favorite or the cheapest and buy it without knowing the history of the product. In our consumer market, it can be difficult to tell whether or not our money is going to support child laborers.
However, this is an issue that can easily be remedied. All we need to do is to educate ourselves about different stores, companies, brands and products. There are many websites and books out there to help us learn which of the products we buy are made in a just fashion.
Every time we purchase an item at a store, we use our dollars as our vote. If we purchase a product, we are sending a message to that company that we agree with their business practices and want them to continue with those practices. If a company is using child labor and we continue to buy from them, nothing will change. However, if we choose only to buy from socially responsible companies, we will send a clear message that we will not put up with child labor.
Before you take your next trip to the store, do your homework first. Make sure your dollars are not going to support the cause of child labor. You can make a difference, and it can be as easy as buying the right products.
Allie Stehlin ‘11
While I applaud your enthusiasm for the abolitionist cause, please see this link for a video by Kevin Bales and more information about how to stop slavery in the product chain.
http://abolitionistjb.blogspot.com/2010/02/abolitionist-video-of-day-ending.html
The Roadblocks:
What makes it difficult for businesses to wipe out slavery is they often buy their supplies from a broker, who buys it from a broker, who buys it from a group of farmers, where a small percentage may have slaves. That’s why it’s essential for businesses to work with other businesses in their field, the government and anti-slavery groups on the ground that can help identify where slavery starts.
Why Boycotting Businesses is NOT Effective:
Some might say, “Let’s boycott the products.” The problem with this blanket approach is that it does more harm than good. This hurts the business, which hurts the brokers, which hurts the group of farmers, of which 95%+ are legitimate farmers on the Ivory Coast struggling to survive. If their farms fail, they can easily be enslaved on slave farms or may become a slave farm themselves to survive.
Because the overhead is so cheap for slave labor, this has been seen to grow the slave cycle instead of breaking it.
That’s why it’s critical to weed out the small percentage of slavery in the product chain at the root. When businesses and anti-slavery groups work together, instead of bashing each other, this can take place.
Thanks,
AbolitionistJB
Follow up to the previous post.
What You Can Do to Help:
If you know of a company with slavery in their product chain, contact the company to make them aware of the problem along with your state legislators and local news. Nothing will get a company motivated to investigate and cleanup their product chain like a little bad PR. This is actually how the chocolate companies started making changes and decided to partner up with government and abolitionist groups.
Thanks Again,
AbolitionistJB