The Church where it's all about ....

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The Sinister Story Behind Chocolate

This story might be regarded as bad news for those chocaholics among us...

originally published in The Age, September 18, 2007

Chocolate is regarded as a treat, a sweet luxury often given as a gift. But that is only part of its story. The rest is more sinister. Two hundred years after the British Empire abolished the slave trade, nearly half the world's chocolate is made from cocoa grown in Ivory Coast, West Africa, where tens of thousands of children are forced to work on plantations as slaves.

A 2002 study estimated that at least 284,000 children were trapped in forced labour in the West African cocoa industry, the majority of these — some 200,000 — were to be found in Ivory Coast. Even the most conservative estimates, including those by the chocolate companies themselves, concede that the number of chocolate slaves is at least 12,000.

These children are forced to apply pesticides without protective clothing and to work for up to 12 hours a day on the plantations for little or no pay. Their toil helps the giant chocolate makers produce the chocolate we find on the shelves of our stores.

Parliamentarian and social justice crusader William Wilberforce, whose life-long crusade resulted in the abolition of the slave trade — which then formed a critical part of the economic foundations of the British Empire — would be horrified. A recent feature film, Amazing Grace, heralds Wilberforce's crusade to free the slaves, yet the tragedy is that more people are ensnared in slavery today than in the entire 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Human trafficking generates $A37 billion annually and enslaves at least 12 million around the globe. Some estimates even put the number of people enslaved as high as 27 million. And the epicentre of today's slave trade is in Australia's backyard — South-East Asia.

The tragic nature of this industry is evident when you realise that the average age of a girl locked in sexual slavery in South-East Asia is 12 or 13.

However complex this trade in people, it is inescapable that there is a strong and foundational link between poverty and modern-day slavery. People who are poor are more vulnerable. We can't fight slavery without fighting poverty.

Overseas aid is critical to developing better public justice systems but it is also important in providing livelihoods for emancipated slaves.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, people trafficking is the world's fastest-growing crime, already bigger than the international drug trade and second only to the illegal buying and selling of arms.

But action is being taken. Stop The Traffik, the organisation I founded three years ago, now has more than 600 member organisations in 60 countries around the globe determined to raise awareness of the problem and to demand action at all levels to bring it to an end. One of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal is as consumers. In 2000, the chief executives of the major chocolate makers were hauled before the US Senate and a bill was proposed that would require the chocolate industry to certify all their chocolate as "slave-free".

The cocoa industry successfully lobbied against this, arguing that the supply chain for cocoa was complex, with middlemen buying the beans and mixing them before selling them on to conglomerate buyers.

But such major companies control the market and they can determine under what conditions they buy their cocoa beans. Unless the industry can guarantee that our chocolate is not made from beans picked by trafficked children, then we will never make progress. Industry must be able to tell people which farms beans are from and must guarantee no trafficked labour.

Consumers for their part should buy chocolate only from those companies that give this guarantee. It is a practical way we can all contribute to today's crusade to end modern-day slavery.

Human trafficking is a global problem that requires a global response. At the end of his life William Wilberforce referred to the battle against slavery as "unfinished business". Today, working together, we can complete the task.

Steve Chalke is founder of the global Stop The Traffik campaign.

Zeitgeist

One of these new environmental "SMART" cars was parked out front a few days ago. It's apparently advertising a new chocolate bar, but also represents something of the spirit of our age.


Humourous, but concerning at the same time, don't you think?

Department Store Tactics

Some interesting insights into how department stores (and supermarkets) use strategies to part you with more money than you intended when you entered the store has been posted over at The Simple Dollar. They also provide some strategies for countering this type of marketing and manipulation. You can read the detail at the Simple Dollar, but I'll offer the headlines here:
1. Shopping carts.
2. Desirable departments are far away from the entrance.
3. The toy section is far, far, far away from the entrance.
4. Impulse-oriented items are near the checkouts.
5. The most expensive versions of a product are the ones at eye height.
6. Items that aren’t on sale are sometimes placed as though they are on sale (without saying the word “sale”).
7. Commodity items (like socks) are surrounded by non-commodity items (like shirts and jeans).
8. Slickly-packaged items alternate with less slickly-packaged items.
9. Stop, stop, stop. You only add items to your cart if you stop, right? So stores are designed to maximize the number of stops you have to make
10. Staple items are placed in the middle of aisles, nonessential and overpriced items near the end.
11. Prices are chosen to make comparison math difficult.
12. Stuff in bins isn’t always a bargain.
13. High markup items are made to look prestigious.
14. The most profitable department is usually the first one you run into.
15. Restrooms and customer services are usually right by the exit or as far from the exit as possible.

And the suggestions for taking control?
1. Don’t use a shopping cart unless you need it.
2. Make a shopping list and stick to it.
3. Look at nothing but the prices and sizes.
4. Start at the back and work towards the front.
5. Always look at the bottom shelf first.
6. Don’t stop unless you’re actively selecting an item.
7. Never go by an item twice unless absolutely necessary.
8. Carry a pocket calculator - or know how to use the one on your cell phone.
9. If you don’t know for sure that it is a good deal, don’t buy because you think it is a good deal.
10. At the checkout, rethink everything you put in your cart - and don’t hesitate to hand an item to the cashier and say you changed your mind.